


The Song and the Silence

by red0aktree



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drug Addiction, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Multi, Slow Burn, mentioned Joffrey Baratheon/Sansa Stark, mentioned Ramsey Bolton/Sansa Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-28 21:24:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20070826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red0aktree/pseuds/red0aktree
Summary: Both boys descended the stairs with lowered heads. Sansa closed the bathroom door, her thoughts quickly straying from her brothers’ fate and Theon’s bruises. She was much more concerned with how she would manage to look her best for her last day now that those mischievous boys had eaten up half of her allotted bathroom time.It was only later, much later, that Sansa would realize that this was only the first of many unexpected doors behind which she would find Theon Greyjoy.~.~Modern A/U; Featuring: Childhood crushes, aborted Lord of the Rings marathons, and love found and lost and found again.





	1. CHAPTER ONE

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic since 2016, hope I haven't lost my touch ;)
> 
> Huge thank you to my betas: [Ardenkaboom](https://ardenkaboom.tumblr.com/) and [confusing-thoughts](confusing-thoughts.tumblr.com). Couldn't have done it without you guys <3

CHAPTER ONE

> “I remember the gleams and glooms that dart
> 
> Across the school-boy’s brain;
> 
> The song and the silence in the heart,
> 
> That in part are prophecies, and in part
> 
> Are longings wild and vain.
> 
> And the voice of that fitful song
> 
> Sings on, and is never still:
> 
> “A boy’s will is the wind’s will,
> 
> And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”
> 
> There are things of which I may not speak;
> 
> There are dreams that cannot die;
> 
> There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak,
> 
> And bring a pallor into the cheek,
> 
> And a mist before the eye.
> 
> And the words of that fatal song
> 
> Come over me like a chill:
> 
> “A boy’s will is the wind’s will,
> 
> And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”
> 
> _ _ My Lost Youth, _ William Wadsworth Longfellow _

Soundtrack: [_It Doesn’t Mean a Thing_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut6DYwS_3Lk) | [_1957 _](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxBHbOpXCIQ)| [_Use Somebody_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRgFeZa_I48)

Sansa was furious. Jon knew just as well as the rest of them that the bathroom was a precious commodity in the morning. There was only one bathroom between the three of them that shared the third floor. Robb got first go so he could get downstairs before all the coffee was gone, then Jon claimed second so he could ‘shave’ (Sansa suspected it had more to do with mousse than aftershave), then finally it was Sansa. Each of them was allowed twenty minutes, not a second more.

The routine was sacred, and Sansa could hardly believe that Jon would choose to demean it today, of all days. Sansa took the last day of school very seriously, and Jon knew it. She wouldn’t ever be returning to South Landing Middle School, it was important to Sansa that she looked nice for all the pictures with friends, and that she left a good last impression on all her teachers. Sansa supposed she couldn’t be too surprised. He and Robb had been nearly as bad as Arya ever since Theon got a license. She had caught them sneaking out more than once, and on one particularly unfortunate incident had needed to help Jon through the basement window when he came home drunk and stumbling. 

Just yesterday father had been made to leave early to collect the boys from school. Evidently they had gotten into a lunchroom scuffle with a few other boys. At dinner Ned warned them that he was already saving all his grey hairs for Arya, they needn’t start contributing, too. 

Sansa tucked her makeup bag under her arm and pounded on the door. Jon had always liked to take his sweet time but he was really pushing it today. 

“Jon!” Sansa shouted. “Do you plan on staying in there until breakfast? You better have a good excuse!”

Sansa knocked again, before hearing the unexpected sound of two doors clicking open simultaneously, one in front of her, and one behind. Startled by the sound behind her, Sansa twisted around to meet Jon’s panicked expression. With a gasp, Sansa spun back around to see a stricken Theon Greyjoy in the bathroom doorway. His eyes darted between Sansa and Jon, who was attempting to step around Sansa as if to hide Theon from her view. 

“Don’t tell mom.”

“Jon, what’s going--” 

“Don’t tell mom, please. Robb is already downstairs doing damage control. He’s going to try and catch dad before he leaves for work.” 

Theon had spent many nights at the Stark household, playing video games with the boys or marathoning movies over pizza. Admittedly none of them had been school nights, but Sansa suspected that Jon’s apprehension came more from the current state of Theon’s face than from the fact that they had broken curfew. 

Theon’s left eye was deeply bruised and bloodshot, and he had an angry scrape along his jawline. At Sansa’s gaze he ducked his head, and Jon shifted to block Theon completely. 

“Seriously,” Jon pleaded. “Don’t tell mom. Dad has probably already seen Theon’s car so we’re fucked there, but Robb reckons we can just sneak Theon out when dad leaves for work and mom won’t know the difference. She’s still getting Rickon up, you see, so…” Jon trailed off at Sansa’s bewildered expression. “What? Sansa you don’t even have to do anything, just don’t tell her you saw Theon. You don’t even have to _ lie _.”

“Jon, you can’t believe dad is just going to go with your little plan. If you three have been out causing trouble--” Sansa cut herself off and pointed a raised finger between the two of them accusingly. “Oh, I know. Yesterday’s fight wasn’t good enough? Had to get the last word in on whoever pissed you off?”

“No, Sansa, this is different,” Jon said, his voice low as though it were a secret. “Please believe me.” 

Sansa’s raised finger wilted and her shoulders drooped. She looked between the two of them again, closer this time. Only Theon bore any marks, Jon looked the same as when they had bid each other goodnight. She’d known the three of them to come home with bruises before, but half the time their brawls were with each other. Besides, usually when they found themselves in trouble it was Theon’s big mouth that put them there, but here he stood silent, letting Jon make excuses for him. Sansa had never known Theon to let anyone else speak for him when he could do it himself. She was a bit unsettled by the thought and let her hand drop completely to her side. 

Sansa opened her mouth to speak but was saved the trouble by her mother’s voice bellowing from the floor below them: “Robb Stark you asked your father to do _ what _?” 

“I think that’s your cue,” Sansa nodded to Jon and Theon. “May I use the bathroom now?” 

Both boys descended the stairs with lowered heads. Sansa closed the bathroom door, her thoughts quickly straying from her brothers’ fate and Theon’s bruises. She was much more concerned with how she would manage to look her best for her last day now that those mischievous boys had eaten up half of her allotted bathroom time. 

It was only later, much later, that Sansa would realize that this was only the first of many unexpected doors behind which she would find Theon Greyjoy. 

* * *

When Sansa descended the stairs for breakfast, she could hear Robb’s elevated voice before she reached the bottom step. 

“Should I have turned him out?” Robb implored, accusingly. “Is that what you are saying?”

“That is _ not _ what I am saying. Stop acting like a child--” 

The noise was coming from the sitting room at the front of the house. Sansa staunchly avoided that room and veered toward the dining room. Though she may have felt the tiniest bit of vindication at the sight of their dejected faces, she figured she would let the boys get what was coming without an audience. 

As she rounded the corner to the dining room she was startled to see Theon sitting at the table, a cup of coffee clutched between both hands. He raised his head when she entered. Sansa gave him a quizzical look. She had assumed he would have been sat neatly between Jon and Robb on the Scolding Couch. Anytime the trio had caused trouble together in the past Theon was just as involved in the punishment as the rest of them. Mom couldn’t technically ground him because he wasn’t her son, but she tried all the same. They’d been sentenced to yard work more than once, and oil changes on occasion. Yet, here he sat, safe from Catelyn’s wrath. 

Sansa wasn’t sure what to say to Theon, it wasn’t often she was left alone with him without her brothers. She opted to say nothing, just give him a nod of acknowledgement and pass through the dining room to the kitchen. 

In the kitchen, Sansa found her father pressed and ready in his work clothes. He called a good morning to her, as though nothing was amiss. “I figured I ought to brew another pot,” Ned said, nodding toward the coffee pot he was bustling with, “Sounds like your mother might need it all to herself today.” Ned chuckled to himself as he began to fill the reservoir. 

“Dad,” Sansa said as she began to measure out dry oats for her morning oatmeal. “Why is Theon here?”

“Because his father is a cruel man, Sansa,” Ned paused for a moment in thought, “And because your brother’s heart is too big for his own good sometimes.” 

Sansa’s hand halted, measuring cup of oats halfway to her bowl. She looked at her father in bewilderment. 

“His… Theon’s dad is the one who hurt him?”

Ned bowed his head in sorrowful acquiescence. Sansa’s face flushed with anger. 

“Why-- What--” Sansa couldn’t decide which of the questions that swirled inside her head was most pressing. Finally she blurted out: “Why is mom angry at Robb for letting him in, then?” 

“Your mom’s not mad about that part. Neither am I. Theon came to you brothers because he trusts us, your mom and I recognize that. We just would have preferred the boys woke us up rather than all this sneaking around. For one thing, we could have given Theon the couch rather than whatever the three of them worked it out in those bunk beds,” Ned chuckled, but then met Sansa’s eye with a level gaze. “But more importantly, we could have protected him or the family if we needed to. Theon ran away. His father could have come looking for him, could have come here in the middle of the night while your mother and I were asleep. I would have rather we been awake had that happened.” 

Sansa nodded slowly. She understood completely, but couldn’t think of a single thing to say. She stared at her father, her green eyes bright with unshed tears. Sansa thought of the harsh words she had spoken to the boys in the hallway this morning. She had accused Theon of going looking for trouble. How terrible he must have been feeling, and how rudely Sansa treated him. Tears brimmed and fell from Sansa’s eyes. 

“Don’t think on it too much, kiddo,” Ned comforted, placing a warm hand on her shoulder. “Your mother and I are doing what we can to make sure he is safe.”

Sansa thought of all the long nights she had spent playing Monopoly with Theon and her brothers, watching movies until they all fell asleep on the living room floor. For the Starks those nights were an entertaining way to pass the weekend. For Theon, perhaps they were an escape from a reality he didn’t want to address. 

“Are you going to send him home?” Sansa asked. Her next words felt foolish even as they rose to her tongue, but she pressed onward. “Can’t he just, live here now?”

“I wish it were that easy, kiddo. Otherwise he would have his own bedroom in a heartbeat.” Ned pressed a kiss to the top of Sansa head. “But like I said, your mother and I are doing what we can. I don’t want you worrying about it, Sansa. All you can do is be kind to him. Oh, and don’t tell your sister, okay? She is too young to be troubled by this.”

Sansa was surprised by this request. Arya was twelve, only two years younger than Sansa. It was true that Sansa kept secrets better than Arya, but Sansa found it hard to believe that Arya was too young to understand what abuse was. 

“Why am I allowed to know, then? If Arya is too young…”

“Because you have a sensitive heart, Sansa. Kinder than your sister’s, and more understanding than your knucklehead brothers. Theon probably needs somebody like you on his side right now.” Ned sighed. “Speaking of your brothers, I probably ought to go check that your mother hasn’t eaten them alive. Would you mind packing lunches for the little ones? I think your mom is a bit tied up at the moment.” 

Sansa waved her father away. She hoped he could talk some sense into Catelyn. Sansa understood why she was angry, but Robb was only going to keep arguing and Sansa was tired of hearing it. It set her nerves on edge to hear her brother so upset. Sansa pulled down Bran and Rickon’s lunch bags and set to work cutting carrots and filling ziploc bags with crackers. Sansa’s stomach was in knots, her appetite had disappeared the moment she realized where Theon’s bruises came from. 

Before Sansa zipped up Bran and Rickon’s lunch bags she doubled back to the pantry for the final touch. Sansa stood on her tiptoes to reach the candy jar on the top shelf, and placed a cellophane wrapped lemon drops in each bag. She took one for herself as well and tucked it in the pocket of her summer dress. She would eat it later, the stolen treats always made her feel better. 

Lunches packed, her’s included, Sansa stood at the kitchen doorway suprised by her hesitancy to exit. She didn’t know what she would do if Theon sat at the table alone still. She wanted to speak to him but wasn’t sure if it was appropriate. There wasn’t anything she could say to him anyway, everything felt trivial in her head. Besides, she couldn’t be sure he would even want her to know the whole story. 

Sansa paced the length of the room. On her third turn around the stove she was frightened by the sight of a new presence in the kitchen. The object of her thoughts stood calmly in the doorway, one eyebrow quirked. Theon smirked when Sansa met his eyes and she knew he had seen her pacing. 

“Big day today?” Theon asked. “Last day of middle school. That’s exciting.” 

“I’m about to miss it if mother doesn’t stop yelling at the boys soon. We have usually left by now.” 

“Oh,” Theon sounded surprised. “Your mom takes you to school? Who else, Arya?” 

“Just Arya and I. We’re the only ones at South Landing.” 

“Shit,” Theon looked around the kitchen, then patted both pockets. “My keys are upstairs. I’ll be right back.”

He was gone before Sansa could protest. She stood in the kitchen in shock for a panicked moment before darting down to hall to Arya’s bedroom. She threw Arya’s backpack at her and shooed her out of the room, hair unbrushed.

“What the Hell?” Arya protested. “We’re going to school? Come on, Sansa. Last day, Mom and Robb are fighting -- Hey, don’t shove me.”

Sansa lightly prodded Arya again, this time to the foot of the stairs. Arya turned to face Sansa, teeth bared, before their father’s voice stopped them. He had Bran and Rickon in tow, their own backpacks on. 

“Girls, stop it. Listen, I don’t think your brothers are going to school today. And if they are,” he paused as Robb’s voice rose from the other room, “It won’t be until your brother stops calling mom names. So, you two are coming with me, it will be pretty tight with Rickon’s car seat but--”

“I can drive them Mr. Stark.” Theon’s voice sounded from behind the girls. Sansa turned to see him standing at the top of the stairs, keys outstretched as if proof for Ned that he could, indeed, drive. “I’m probably not going to school anyway. I’ll take them.” 

Ned hesitated a moment, both daughters staring at him in question. Ned had been skeptical of Theon’s driving in the past, owing largely to the fact that Theon drove a BMW. It was rather old, and both doors had been replaced in the past, but Theon still revved it any chance he could. Ned seemed stressed enough to overlook that as he nodded a firm _ yes _. 

“Drop them off around back, less people that way,” Ned said. He pressed a kiss to Sansa and Arya’s forehead’s before tugging the boys toward the front door. They both called warm goodbyes to their sisters as they left. By the time they had disappeared into the sitting room to bid Catelyn goodbye, Theon had reached the bottom of the stairs to stand with the girls. 

“Well ladies, shall we?” 

“If we are going to leave, let’s make it out the backdoor,” Arya suggested, shouldering her backpack with exaggerated resignation. 

“I like the way you think,” Theon said. Arya nodded and lead the way out the back and through the garden. Sansa didn’t have to worry about what to say to Theon with Arya around. As she stomped to the car, Arya continued a nonstop monologue about her grudge against the last day of school. 

“Worst part is,” she continued. “We don’t even _ do _anything. Everyone just sits around and talks, like one of dad’s stupid work parties. Why can’t I leave early? Shouldn’t I be able to just go home if we’re going to do nothing?”

Arya slammed the door as she climbed into the back seat. Sansa took shotgun. Theon was laughing as he climbed in the driver seat and started up the car. “I agree with you, Arya. It’s pretty much bullshit.” 

“Exactly. I bet you aren’t even going to go. When I have a car I won’t go to school on any day I don’t have to. _ Especially _the last day.”

“You have to go to school everyday, Arya. That’s what makes it school,” Sansa argued. “Also the last day is supposed to be fun, it’s for saying goodbye to friends and teachers, and signing yearbooks.”

Arya was not satisfied with that answer. She continued her argument with “all my friends are going to the same school as me next year, Sansa,” and explained that she only goes to school for Mr. Cassel’s P.E. class anyway, because sometimes they do archery lessons. 

Theon laughed at Arya’s commentary, offering the occasional quip to keep her going. Sansa bit her tongue trying not to argue with Arya’s nonsense. She envied Theon for his ability to laugh his way through most any conversation, to entertain even the most outlandish ideas with a well timed joke. 

_ Not this morning, _ Sansa’s tumultuous thoughts reminded her, _ He couldn’t find a joke this morning when Jon spoke for him. _Sansa still felt guilty for the way she had spoken to Theon this morning. It felt like everything was clouded with her new knowledge of his home life, her new concern for his well being. She wouldn’t have said such rude things to him had she knew. She wanted him to know that somehow, but she couldn’t get a word in with Arya rambling on. 

Soon South Landing drew in the distance, and Sansa’s palms grew sweaty. Theon stopped around back and Arya collected her bag and climbed from the car with a hasty goodbye. Sansa searched her mind for anything worth saying. She collected her bag in silence, but paused before leaving the car. She tucked one hand in her dress pocket and turned to look at Theon. The harsh morning light showcased his dark, angry bruises. Sansa didn’t look away. 

“Thank you for the ride,” Sansa began. “And I’m sorry about this morning. I didn’t know.” 

“But you do now?” Theon’s smile fell into an unhappy grimace. 

“Father told me.” Sansa pulled the little yellow candy from her pocket and twisted it in her hands. Theon fixed his eyes on the candy rather than meet her eye. “And I just wanted to say I’m sorry. No one should be treated like that.” 

Sansa stretched the lemon drop across the console and tucked the candy in Theon’s hand. She snatched her hand away quickly, unsettled by the brief contact. Theon whipped his eyes to hers, confused. 

“They make me feel better when I’m sad,” Sansa explained. She offered a weak smile, which Theon returned. He closed his hand around the candy. 

“You’ll be late for your last day,” Theon said finally. Sansa did not fault him for not knowing what to say. “Get lots of signatures.” 

“Thanks,” Sansa smiled, bigger this time, and darted from the car. 

* * *

Sansa was never entirely privy to what took place between her father and Balon Greyjoy in the following weeks. The boys knew much more than they lead on, but no one filled Sansa in. She didn’t ask many questions, though. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. All Sansa knew was the summer that followed was the best she’d had. 

Theon didn’t stay at the Stark house every night, but he was there more often than not. The boys celebrated as though they had been gifted another brother, one that came with his own car and an appetite for adventure. Sansa was pleased to find that an unintended side-effect of Theon’s presence in the house meant that she was included into the group as though she was one of the boys. Whenever they needed a fourth player to even out teams during board games or Mario Kart, Sansa was always willing to step in. Even when Robb and Jon disputed her inclusion, Theon would recruit her in spite of them. The two of them had forged an uneasy alliance ever since the lemon drop exchange. Of the Stark children, only Sansa and the boys knew about Theon’s complicated family situation. Sansa figured it was because of this that the four of them were near inseparable. 

Robb got his learner’s permit in late June and Theon offered to let Robb practice driving with his BMW. Ned and Catelyn did not approve, but that hardly stopped them. Jon and Sansa found themselves tagging along more often than not, stuffed into the tiny back seat and snickering behind their hands every time Robb overcorrected or stopped too harshly. Theon was a good teacher though, and never reprimanded Robb for nearly dropping his transmission more than once. 

Sansa enjoyed the freedom Theon’s car brought the group. It had become Theon’s unofficial assignment to drive Arya to her fencing lessons every Wednesday, and Sansa often tagged along to convince Theon to stop for ice cream on the way home. He almost always agreed, and they would come home with a cone for all of the Stark children. 

In late August, Sansa accompanied the boys on a hike through the Groton forest. They ended atop a large, sloped peak overlooking the lush valleys of Vermont. As Sansa observed the serene scene, Theon plopped himself down beside her and began rummaging in his bag. He pulled from it four cans of beer, and passed one to Robb and Jon, then Sansa. He winked as she took the lukewarm can from him, and requested that she not tell Ned. It seemed as though things could continue like this for the rest of her childhood. In a few weeks Sansa would be entering high school, the same school Robb, Jon, and Theon already attended. She imagined them spending their lunch breaks together like this (minus the beer, of course), laughing and chatting without a care in the world. They could sign up for the same clubs, Sansa could even try out for the track and field team that they all participated in. 

Sansa was sorely disappointed when school started, and every fantasy she had built up in her mind was crushed. It only took one interaction, the first day of school. 

Sansa collected her lunch tray, disoriented by the sheer size of the lunchroom. There were tables everywhere, most of them already occupied by kids who looked much older than Sansa felt. She peered around nervously, left awash amongst a sea of unfamiliar faces. Finally she spotted Jon’s mop of dark hair, and heard Theon’s barking laugh. Sansa beelined toward the table they sat at. 

It was Theon that saw her first. The smile fell from his face and transformed into a grimace. Sansa smiled at him and nodded toward the empty seat at their table. Two other boys sat with her brothers, kids she had never met before. Sansa hoped they would introduce her, the blonde one was startlingly handsome. Instead, Theon just shook his head. Robb raised his gaze to his sister, and shook his head, too. 

Sansa stood stalk still. She made no motion to walk away from the table. She wasn’t sure she was interpreting their signs right. Were they telling her she couldn’t sit with them? 

It was Jon who made the implication perfectly clear. He turned to Sansa, smile bright, and asked, “How’s your first day going? Find some freshmen to sit with?” 

Sansa shook her head. “I don’t know anyone here.”

“Well, go make friends then. The freshmen sit downstairs, by the computer labs.” He flashed her a kind smile, but his eyes pleaded her to leave. Their blonde friend eyed Sansa was a quirked eyebrow. 

Sansa didn’t give Jon a response. She turned around and stormed off. Her lunch found its way to the trash. Sansa spent her first high school lunch break fuming in the bathroom, cursing Theon’s stupid grimace and Jon’s fake positivity. She cursed them, cursed the school, and cursed herself for believing that her brothers would want to hang out with a silly little girl. 


	2. Chapter 2

### CHAPTER TWO

Soundtrack: [_Smile Like You Mean It_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wr4SVUH1MbM) | [_You Told the Drunks I Knew Karate_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVtdk2pg_cA) | [_Bitter Water_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz5MGQZfKPo)

The start of the school year brought with it a reinstated curfew. One evening in late September, Catelyn sat the Stark children down and reminded them they were not allowed to have sleepovers on school nights. She said it to all of them, but her attention was fixed on Robb and Jon. She seemed to suspect they were sneaking Theon in through the basement window again. Jon looked shameful, while Robb’s face burned red in anger. He clenched his fists, but said nothing. 

Sansa brushed off the reminder. _ She _wasn’t the one having late night rendezvous with Theon. In fact, she hadn’t spoken so much as a word to him since the first day of school. She was giving her brothers the cold shoulder, too. They had tried to rope her into board games and ice cream dates, but she had ignored the invitations. She wouldn’t allow them to treat her like a stranger at school yet a friend at home. They would have to decide whether they wanted to be her friend everywhere, or nowhere. 

It was surprisingly easy to ignore her brothers. She supposed this was one of the perks of having a large family. Sansa spent a lot more time with Arya, and the two of them found that they could usually make peace long enough to have a robust game of checkers. From there they progressed to cutthroat Mario Kart competitions in the living room. Bran sometimes joined them, but Robb and Jon were firmly banned. Sansa had caught Jon pouting about it more than once. It brought her a selfish little thrill of joy to exclude her brothers at home the way they excluded her at school. 

To her disappointment, it didn’t bring her the same type of joy to exclude Theon. He had started showing up with bruises again. It was hard for Sansa to ignore them. She wanted to speak to him, to ask if everything was okay at home or if he needed their help. She hoped Robb was at least talking to him about it, but she somehow doubted that the two of them were any good at having heart-to-heart conversations. 

Sansa ignored these troubled feelings, and buried herself in her studies, in her newfound companionship with her sister, with her new friends at school. Sansa had befriended a girl named Margaery Tyrell. Margaery was two years Sansa’s senior, and one of the most beautiful and sought after people in school. She was not, however, very good at math, and had to retake Freshman algebra. That was where Sansa met Margaery. The pair had initially bonded over their matching floral notebooks but quickly became fast-friends once they discovered they had shared interests in sewing, cute boys, and karate movies. 

Margaery also had a brother, Loras. He was Robb’s grade, and was the handsome blonde boy she saw sitting with her brothers on the first day of class. Sansa had met him one evening at the Tyrell’s house (more of a mansion, really). He didn’t seem to mind that she was only a freshman, and once told her that she was a “breath of fresh air compared to most of the girls at Red Keep High.” Together with Margaery the trio watched movies in the Tyrell home theater, and sometimes spent the evenings sipping stolen champagne on the back porch. On occasion, Loras’s boyfriend Renly would join them. He always knew how to make Sansa laugh, and she liked him quite a lot. 

September bled into October, bringing with it colder winds and barren trees. Sansa and Margaery spent time in and out of second-hand shops, collecting items for their Halloween costumes. They had agreed to take the Stark youngsters trick-or-treating, and Bran had begged Sansa to make him a Batman costume. Sansa agreed. They dressed little Rickon in red and yellow and let him go as Robin. Arya had caught wind of the costumes, and demanded that Sansa make her a Joker costume. She was taking the role very seriously, and had been terrorizing everyone in the household all month. Sansa and Margaery decided to go as Poison Ivy and Catwoman respectively. Robb and Jon were not invited to their costume configuration, no matter how often Margaery fawned over them. Sansa was still enforcing her ‘cold shoulder’ rule. 

The weekend before Halloween, Arya had a fencing competition in Chicago. Robb and Jon were accompanying them to tour colleges in the area, and Rickon was too young to stay home without Catelyn and Ned. Sansa had begged her parents to let her stay and finish making the costumes, and they had finally agreed. Bran stayed, too. The official reason was because Sansa needed him there to make sure she got the right fit on the costume. The unofficial reason was because neither of them thought a fencing competition sounded all that interesting, and it would be much more fun to have the house to themselves for the weekend. 

Fun it was. The first night they stayed up much too late watching scary movies in the living room, and nearly made themselves sick with pizza and candy. The second night Bran went to bed early, and Sansa stayed up alone in the kitchen working on her sewing and texting Margaery. Her eyes had started watering every time she yawned (which was happening more and more often as the night went on), and Sansa was about ready to call it a night when she heard a knock at the front door. 

The clock read 1:22am. Sansa’s heart pounded in her chest. No one should be visiting at this hour. Sansa crept close to the door, phone clutched in her hand, her thumb poised over the ‘emergency call’ button. As she neared the entryway she dropped to her hands and knees so she couldn’t be seen through the windows. When she reached the window she peeked through the blinds, careful not to shift them more than a centimeter or two. From the angle she was at, she couldn’t see the doorstep, but she could see the driveway. There sat a beat up BMW with mismatched doors. The knock came again. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Sansa began her mantra as she stood suddenly and stomped to the door. “Fuck, fuck, fuck _ you _Theon Greyjoy.” 

She threw open the door, scowl already firmly in place. She glared into the space where Theon’s face should have been, but the space was empty. She lowered her gaze, then lowered it again until she found who she was looking for. Theon sat in a heap on her doorstep, one arm cradled to his chest, bruises on his cheeks, and a nervous tremble running through his entire body. He tried to stand when he saw Sansa, but swayed on his feet and had to brace himself against the door jamb. 

“I tried texting Robb,” he explained weakly. “He didn’t answer.”

“He’s in Chicago, you ass,” Sansa said, but there was hardly any bite in her tone. Theon looked wretched. “What happened to you?”

Theon snorted, but didn’t answer. Sansa stepped aside to let him in. He swayed on his feet like a drunk in holding. She reached out her arm to clasp his bicep and dragged him into the hallway, shutting and locking the door behind him swiftly. She deposited him onto the Scolding Couch and went to the kitchen to get ice and the first aid kit. Her heart was still hammering from the false scare. She hoped Theon’s knocking hadn’t woken Bran. 

Back in the living room, Sansa set her supplies on the couch beside Theon and crouched in front of him. Even in the dim light of the sitting room she could see his bruises, the way his hands shook. The knuckles of his right hand were swollen and bloody. 

Sansa started with his hands first. She took them gently into her own and dabbed at them with a moist towel. “You scared the shit out of me,” Sansa told him as she worked. “I thought you were a burglar.” 

“Not very good practice to open the door for people you think are burglars.”

“I saw your car in the driveway, idiot. I knew it was you.” 

Sansa dabbed ointment onto the scrapes on Theon’s hands. His fingers flexed against her palm. 

“Sorry I scared you.” 

Sansa sighed. “It’s alright. Looks like you’ve had quite the scare yourself.” 

Theon nodded, but didn’t elaborate. Sansa sighed again and let go of his hand. She gave him ice for his bruises, and examined his arm to make sure it wasn’t broken. His elbow was swollen, but he could bend it, so Sansa assigned him a clean bill of health and returned the first aid kit to the kitchen. 

Before returning to the sitting room Sansa allowed herself a moment to calm her nerves. She took a lemon drop from the candy jar and sucked it thoughtfully. She still felt angry at Theon for the way he treated her at school, but she never would have turned him away when he needed her. She wondered what that said about the two of them. _ Perhaps that’s just the way people make you feel sometimes, _ Sansa thought to herself. _ When you love them enough, you can be angry at them in your core, but still want nothing for them but happiness. _

Sansa took another lemon drop from the jar and went to join Theon in the sitting room. She found him where she had left him. He had shifted to huddle on the couch, arms wrapped around his knees and his chin resting on his left kneecap. 

“Well, come on then,” Sansa beckoned him to follow. “You don’t want to spend the night in here. It’s drafty, gets cold at night.” 

Theon followed her to the living room without a word. She clicked the television on with the remote, and deposited herself in the arm chair. She stretched out a hand, the lemon drop resting on her palm. Theon quirked his lips into a small half-smile and took the candy from her. He sat on the couch, choosing the spot closest to the armchair so they were near each other in the empty room. Sansa flicked through Netflix before settling on one of the _ The Fellowship of the Ring _ . She had never seen _ The Lord of the Rings _trilogy all the way through, but she knew the boys liked them. She hoped Theon would find it an acceptable choice. 

“I’m glad you’re talking to me again,” Theon said suddenly, and Sansa turned to peer at him in the darkness. He wasn’t looking at the TV screen, his gaze was fixed on Sansa.

“Who says I’m talking to you?” Sansa spoke softly. It felt wrong to speak aloud in the empty house. “You’re still an asshole, you know? Who gives you the right to treat me like just another dumb freshman at school?”

“Well-- You--” Theon spluttered. “You are one, aren’t you? I mean, not dumb, but a freshman. Upperclassmen don’t hang out with freshman. Come on Sansa, I didn’t mean anything by it. It’s just… the unspoken rules of high school, I guess. You’re supposed to be out there making new friends.” 

“Loras talks to me. He’s your grade, _ and _he’s your friend. He doesn’t think I’m a dumb freshman.” 

Theon didn’t have a response to that. He clenched his jaw and turned to face the TV screen. Sansa wasn’t going to let him get out that easily. 

“It’s just because you’re popular, and all the girls like you, and you and Robb and Jon have your little clique going, and I’m not allowed to join. Am I right? Is that it?”

“No, that’s not it!” Theon rose his voice in a way that seemed to surprise even himself. He shook his head as if to clear his thoughts. “No, Sansa, that’s not it. I can’t speak for your brothers, but at least for me, it wouldn’t be good for either of us if people at school knew we were close. Rumors would start. They’d think we were dating, or something.”

“And what? That would disgrace your honor? In case you’d forgotten, we’re _ not _ dating, Theon. You’re not even my friend. You’re Robb’s.” 

That seemed to wound Theon. He wouldn’t meet her eyes. Sansa figured it served him right for acting as though it would have been truly so awful if people _ did _think they were dating. Sansa knew she wasn’t very popular, but she liked to think she was at least somewhat attractive. Even still, guilt gnawed at Sansa’s stomach. 

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. You are my friend, truly. You’re Robb’s friend, too. And Jon’s and Arya’s and Bran’s and Rickon’s. I just don’t understand why we can’t be friends at school like we are here.” 

Theon was quiet for several seconds. His eyes were trained on the film, but they were glazed over and his face was screwed up in consternation. Finally he spoke. 

“You’re right, we are friends,” he agreed. “And I’m sorry I’ve treated you poorly at school. I’ll try to be better. But please understand, guys my age don’t usually have very good reasons for hanging out with girls like you. They’re only looking for someone to fool around with, and freshmen are easy targets. I hope none of them ever find that in you, not until after high school, anyway.” 

“That’s not what _ you’re _looking for, though.” She paused. “Is it?”

“Of course not. I like you, Sans, but you’re just a kid. Not interested.” 

Sansa smiled. Theon smiled back. It felt good to exchange something other than scowls. Sansa tucked herself into the chair. Her eyes were fixed on the TV when she spoke next. 

“Good. That’s settled. You’re not a creep, and I’m not a naive schoolgirl. Friends?”

“Friends.” 

They watched the movie in silence until they both fell asleep on their respective couches. Sansa slept more easily than she had in a long time. It felt like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders, like things were a little closer to normal in her corner of the universe. 

* * *

Gradually, Sansa lifted her no contact ban on her brothers. She began allowing them back into Mario Kart competitions, and her and Arya decided to forgo their two player checkers games in favor of whole group Monopoly marathons that lasted all night. Soon ice cream runs and movie nights were reinstated in fullforce. Sansa even let them join her Batman themed Halloween. Last minute, she picked up a prosthetic nose and black ski masks, telling Theon, Robb, and Jon that they could dress as the Penguin and some thugs. Robb forced Jon to wear the fake nose, telling him that “since you’re the shortest, it really only makes sense if you’re the Penguin.” He cursed them, but agreed. 

The boys still weren’t overly friendly with her at school, but at least they acknowledged her in the halls now. Sansa figured Theon must have talked some sense into her brothers, who even once offered for her to sit at their table. She brushed them off. Her and Margeary had a standing date in the alcove under the stairs. It was, in terms of high school social hierarchy goes, an even cooler place to sit than where the boys sat. Joffrey Baratheon sat under the stairs. Everyone knew he was the richest boy in school. If his expensive clothing didn’t tell them, then his own mouth would.

Life at the Stark house had all but returned to normal. Sansa supposed that so long as Theon still came around with bruises nothing would be truly normal, but they were at least getting closer. It wasn’t until winter had fallen in full that things went haywire. 

Sansa awoke abruptly one night to the sound of her mother yelling. 

“--and you think you’re so clever, sneaking him in here! I can’t _ believe _you two! I have never-- I can’t--” 

Sansa crept from her bed and peered through the open bedroom door. Jon and Robb stood in the hallway, their heads hung. Theon stood behind them, ice pack pressed to his face and fear and shame flushed across his cheeks. Catelyn stood with her back to Sansa, finger waving at the boys. Theon raised his gaze and caught sight of Sansa in the doorway. His cheeks flushed a deep crimson, and he turned his eyes away quickly. 

Sansa heard her father’s footsteps ascending the stairs, and decided to retreat to the safety of her room. From her bed she could hear her parents speaking in harsh whispers, and then her mother’s voice scolding the boys once more, voice slightly lower now. Sansa could still make out the words. 

“I am appalled at your behavior. We told you last time we caught you sneaking him in, this _ cannot _ keep happening. Balon Greyjoy has threatened to _ press charges _ against your father and I if we keep hiding him here. He is a _ runaway, _we’re practically harboring a missing child right now!”

“If he presses charges, we’ll press them back!” Robb shouted. “We’ll tell them how he hurts Theon. We’ll go to the police-- We’ll--” 

“If Theon was going to go to the police, he should have done it ages ago!” Catelyn shouted back. “We offered that! We even called CPS ourselves, and Theon refused to speak to them! What are we supposed to do here, Robb? Theon isn’t our son, he isn’t a Stark. We can’t keep hiding him here. We can’t help him if he won’t help himself.” 

Sansa was suddenly very glad she had returned to her bedroom. She didn’t want to see the stricken look on Theon’s face at Catelyn’s words. She was right, Theon should have gone to the police a long time ago. She was also right that Theon wasn’t her son. But she was wrong about him not being a Stark. 

Sansa heard a choked gasp from the hallway, then a commotion of several voices speaking over each other. Robb had a few rude words to throw his mother’s way, while Jon began to protest that they weren’t being fair, Theon needed their help. Catelyn lashed back with her own rude words for Robb. Ned spoke over all of them, trying to restore harmony between his family. Sansa didn’t hear a single word from Theon, only the sound of his rushed footsteps as he fled down the stairs. 

Before she realized what she was doing Sansa was already slipping out her door onto the landing. Everyone was too busy pointing fingers in each other’s faces to notice her duck behind her parents and dart down the stairs after Theon. She caught him just as he pulled open the front door. 

“Wait!” Sansa shouted, rushing toward him. “Stop! Please don’t go!” 

Theon froze. His hand clutched the doorknob, the winter wind rustling his hair as he kept his back to Sansa. She approached him hesitantly. His shoulders shook, and Sansa assumed it wasn’t from the cold. 

“Theon,” Sansa repeated softly. She curled her thin fingers around his elbow and tugged him away from the door. “Please. Please, listen to me.” 

Sansa turned him to face her in the entryway. She used her foot to shut the door behind him. Theon kept his eyes lowered, his cheeks wet with tears. 

“Please don’t believe her. You’re one of us, you’re a Stark. She’s just mad, Theon, please believe that. She wants to help you, I know she does.” 

Theon shook his head. He tried to pull away, but Sansa gripped his arm tighter. 

“Please stay here. Don’t go home. You don’t belong there. You belong here, where you’re loved.” 

Theon barked out a laugh. It was a miserable, coarse sound. It caught in his throat like a sob. 

“I don’t feel very loved.” 

Sansa knew it would be a hard sell. It was difficult to feel anything but shameful after being the subject of Catelyn’s wrath, but Sansa needed him to know that he wasn’t alone in this. 

“You are.” Sansa took a deep breath, steadying herself. “You’re loved by me. And by Robb and Jon. That I can promise you. The others don’t matter.”

Theon said nothing, just sank forward into Sansa’s arms and spilled sobs into her shoulder. They had never hugged before. It felt strange, he was shorter than Robb and more boney than Jon. He felt uniquely Theon. She wound her arms around his shoulders without hesitation. Sansa supposed the strangled sounds he made may have been words, but she shushed him with quiet reassurances. She pressed her nose to his hair so she could whisper them straight in his ear, hoping maybe then he would listen. 

“It’s okay, you’re okay. We’re here, and we’re going to help you. Whatever you need, we’ll make it happen. Please don’t cry, Theon, it’s okay.” 

They stayed like that for long enough that the voices upstairs fell quiet. Theon pulled away first, wiping his eyes and avoiding Sansa’s gaze. They both started at the sound of footsteps descending the stairs. 

It was only Ned. He approached them in the entryway and Sansa moved to stand shoulder to shoulder with Theon. He observed them for a moment before saying, “Come on then. I think this calls for hot chocolate.” 

Ned waved them to the kitchen. They followed obediently, and sat at the kitchen counter as Ned put the kettle on the stove. Eventually Robb and Jon joined them, both looking exhausted and haggard. Robb’s eyes were rimmed red. He sat beside Sansa, and she found his hand under the counter and gave it a reassuring squeeze. Robb returned it, and gave her a watery smile before dropping her hand. Catelyn didn’t join them. 

Once they all had a steaming cup to warm their hands on (none of them had much of an appetite to actually drink it, but the warmth was comforting), Ned cleared his throat and fixed them with a serious look. 

“This stops now,” he said in the sober tone he only used when it was imperative they listened. “Your mother and I need to be aware of what’s happening in this house at any given time. We can’t have you four sneaking around. Yes, _ four _,” he looked to Sansa. “I know you’re only trying to help Sansa, but you can’t keep aiding them in this misbehavior. I know you don’t feel like you’re lying, but it’s dishonest to keep secrets from your mother and I.”

Ned turned to Theon then. He shrank under her father’s gaze. “And Theon, I need you to understand that we are trying to help you. We just don’t know what to do anymore. If you want our help going to the authorities, we are here for you. But sneaking away isn’t a long term solution. In the end, it will only make things worse. I’m sure your father notices when you go missing. Am I wrong?” 

Theon shook his head. 

“And when he notices, do things get worse for you at home?”

Theon hesitated, then nodded. 

“Then this can’t keep happening. We need to figure something out.”

“Theon turns eighteen soon, dad,” Robb interjected. “CPS isn’t going to do anything for him.” 

“They might, if we try. But Theon has to want us to try. Do you want that?”

Theon looked overwhelmed by the question. He looked first to Sansa, then to Robb and Jon, then back to Ned. 

“I… I don’t know.” 

Ned’s mouth was pressed into a firm line. He looked at Theon for a long time before letting out a soft sigh. 

“I know it’s hard, son. But you need to make a decision. We want to help you, but you need to be willing to help _ us _ help _ you _. You don’t have to decide tonight, but you do need to decide. I can’t let you keep sneaking in. The window in the basement will be nailed shut next time you try to use it, so don’t bother. And as for you two,” he turned to Robb and Jon, “we’ll be conducting nightly checks on your room. No more hiding him in there.” 

The boys nodded solemnly. Sansa stole a glance at Theon. He was looking deep into his mug of cocoa. Sansa wondered if it held the answers he was clearly searching for. It must not have, because when he turned to meet her eyes they were swimming in fear and apprehension. Sansa took his hand as she had Robb’s. He didn’t let go immediately, and neither did she. They were still clutching to one another when Ned spoke again. 

“Tonight you can stay on the couch. It’s late, and I don’t want you driving anywhere in this snow. We can talk more about this tomorrow. I think I better go talk to Catelyn, see if I can’t calm her down a bit. Don’t stay up too late, kiddos. Make sure you turn off the kitchen light once you’ve finished your cocoa.” 

Before leaving he walked to stand behind the four of them. Sansa dropped Theon’s hand quickly, worried her father would see and misinterpret. Ned placed his hand on Theon’s right shoulder, and Sansa’s left. His hands were warm and comforting. He pulled them both into a backwards hug, Sansa and Theon’s arms pressing together as they were collected to lean against her father’s broad chest for a moment. He did the same to Robb and Jon before bidding them goodnight. 

The four of them were silent for a long time. Jon sipped his hot chocolate. Theon spoke first. 

“I’m sorry I got you all in trouble.” 

“Don’t be sorry,” Robb grumbled. “It’s mom that should be sorry.” 

“Yeah, really, don’t feel bad. It’ll blow over,” Jon added.

“You can still come over, you know?” Robb looked passed Sansa to peer at his friend. “Even at night. Dad might nail the basement window shut, but it’s not the only one you can sneak in through.”

“_ Robb _,” Sansa said, scandalized. “Didn’t you just hear dad? No more sneaking Theon in.” 

“Come on Sans, you know as well as I do that your window is a piece of cake to climb through.” He was right. Her room may have been on the third floor, but her window was positioned directly above one of the eaves accessible directly from the ground. “He can use that. They don’t seem to suspect you as much.”

“Oh, right, so why don’t we just use my window until the next time you get caught, then they _ really _won’t suspect me.” Sansa glared at her brother. 

“Guys, really. It’s okay. Your dad is right.” Theon looked into his mug again. “I need to figure something out or else I’m just going to spend my whole life hiding.” 

“_ Whole life? _” Robb snorted. “You’ll be an adult soon. You can leave your dad, we can get an apartment together the three of us. Then there will be no more hiding.”

Theon seemed unconvinced. They didn’t talk anymore about it, just finished their hot chocolates and washed their mugs. Robb spoke to Theon softly in the dining room as Jon bid them goodnight and retreated upstairs. Sansa busied herself with collecting a quilt and pillow from the linen closet and setting it on the couch. She placed a lemon drop on top of the pillow before calling goodnight to Theon and Robb. 

Sansa hardly slept that night. She kept turning the night’s events over in her mind. Though she hated to admit it, Robb was right. With the basement window sealed, her room would be Theon’s only access to the house if he had to flee in the night again. Sansa knew that if it came to that, she wouldn’t be able to turn him away. Ned was right, she did have a sensitive heart. 


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

Soundtrack: [_We Both Go Down Together_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CiK9AX9Si8) | [_Half of Something Else_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qsL1JDcDeQ) | [_Exeunt_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB4ULHI0svo)

True to his word, Ned nailed the basement window shut the following day. Ned and Catelyn began conducting nightly inspections of the boys’s bedroom. Sometime between one and four am they would stop in to check that only Robb and Jon slept behind the closed door. They never checked on Sansa. She stayed up all night several times in the following weeks just ot be sure. She heard her brothers’ door open and close, then footsteps descending the stairs, but never her own door opening. Robb was right. They didn’t suspect her. They didn’t think her capable of such deception. 

All the better for Theon, Sansa supposed. The first night he snuck through her window was only two weeks after Ned’s talk. Robb awoke her just after midnight, and together they helped Theon through the window. The roof was slick with snow, and the windowsill covered in a thin layer of ice. Sansa stretched out her hands to clasp Theon’s left hand and forearm. Robb did the same to his right and together they pulled him safely into the room. Jon kept watch in the hall. 

“You haven’t heard mom and dad come by yet, have you?” Robb asked as Theon rubbed his arms to keep warm. 

“No, haven’t heard anything,” Sansa said. Robb nodded solemnly. 

“Right. Well, I supposed Jon and I will just go back to ours, and Theon can stay here with you until they come by? Then we’ll switch, he can sleep with us.” 

Sansa agreed. Theon stood by passively, looking miserable and cold. Sansa took pity on him and offered him the fleece from her bed. He wrapped it around his shoulders like a cloak as Robb gave him a decisive nod and left the room. 

Theon and Sansa stared at each other apprehensively for a few moments before Sansa strode to the window and slid it shut with a quiet _ click _. She paced the room once, then twice. 

“Okay, here’s the plan. You can sleep on the floor for tonight. If we hear mom and dad coming to check on the boys, I think you better get under the bed for good measure. They wouldn’t be able to see you there, especially if they just do a quick glance. After they leave, you can come out again.”

“I thought Robb said they didn’t check your room.”

“They don’t. Well, they haven’t. Yet. I suppose they could anytime, but so far--”

Theon groaned and flopped backward onto Sansa’s bed. Sansa watched him for a moment before nudging him to scoot over so she could sit against the headboard. Theon groaned again. 

“Fuck, Sansa, what am I going to do? I can’t just be hiding under your damn bed for the next nine months.” 

“What happens in nine months?” 

“I turn eighteen, finally get access to my college fund, and blow this fucking town, that’s what happens.” 

Sansa thought for a moment. “My floor is clean, you know? I don’t see what’s so bad about hiding in here until you can leave.” 

Theon side eyed her, a thin smile playing on his lips. 

“Never known you to be much of a rule breaker, Sans. Sure you want me here, risking getting you caught? What would dear old Ned say if he found me here, chatting you up in your bed?” 

“Oh stop,” Sansa huffed, jabbing him in the ribs with her toe. “You’re wearing a teddy bear blanket like a cape. Pretty hard to chat someone up looking so ridiculous.” 

Theon examined the blanket around his shoulders. It was indeed patterned with colorful teddy bears, most of them pink and purple. It had been a gift when Sansa turned seven. 

“Hmm,” Theon hummed. “Bears are manly.” 

“Those ones aren’t,” Sansa chuckled. She jabbed him again. “Go on, sit up. You’re not very good at sharing the bed.” 

Theon laughed quietly. Sansa laughed, too. This whole situation felt ridiculous, but she couldn’t set aside the thrill of anxiety in her chest, its throbbing reminding her that this wasn’t something they should be doing. They could be caught at any moment. The last thing they needed was for Catelyn to come check on the boys and hear giggling from Sansa’s room. 

Sansa took her laptop from her bedside table and found them a movie to watch on Netflix. They each took an earbud and tucked themselves against the headboard, shoulders brushing. Theon groaned when the title sequence played.

“Sansa, really? _ The Titanic _?” 

“We watched _ Lord of the Rings _last time. That’s one of yours. This time it’s my pick.”

“I didn’t choose last time! You did!” Theon whispered to her fiercely in mock anger. Sansa stifled a laugh. 

“Still one of yours. Those are all your kind of movies. You know, fighting and dwarves and whatever.” 

Theon seemed appalled that “fighting and dwarves and whatever” was all Sansa had retained from _ Lord of the Rings _. He told her so in an undertone, but she shushed him and together they fell silent and settled in to watch the film. 

They heard Ned conduct his nightly check just after the Titanic first struck the iceberg. Sansa was already getting emotional which meant Theon was more than happy to leave when he was collected by Robb immediately following Ned’s departure back downstairs. Theon bid Sansa goodnight, and thanked her for being willing to house him. It wasn’t until Sansa heard Robb shut his bedroom door and the creaking of the bunk beds nextdoor that Sansa realized Theon had taken the teddy bear blanket with him. 

* * *

All through winter and into the first thaw of spring Sansa let Theon in through her window at least twice a month. Sometime after Christmas he decided to stop texting Robb at all, and instead contacted Sansa directly when he was on his way. She started leaving her phone on full volume at night, just in case. Usually they watched movies together until Ned conducted his nightly sweep, then Theon would steal away to sleep in the boys’s bedroom. 

On one occasion, Sansa awoke the following morning to find that her and Theon had both fallen asleep during the movie (_ Mean Girls _, Sansa’s pick). Her back ached from the way she had slept bent sideways, head resting on Theon’s boney shoulder. She shook him awake quickly and ushered him out of the room just as dawn was breaking across the neighborhood. Sansa realized belatedly that she hadn’t even told Robb that Theon was here. He and Jon had slept through the entire thing.

One afternoon while thrift shopping with Margaery Sansa let slip something about her rendezvous with Theon. She plucked a worn but functional looking sleeping bag from one of the $3.00 bins and said, “Perfect! I should get this for Theon!” Margaery, who could sense good gossip from a mile away, whipped her gaze to Sansa, one eyebrow raised. 

“Theon? Theon _ Greyjoy _? Why does he need a sleeping bag?”

“Oh!” Sansa realized her mistake. “Well-- Ha, ha, it’s kind of a funny story,” Sansa laughed nervously, hands twisting around the sleeping bag. “Well, you know, he’s friends with Robb. He comes over sometimes at night, sneaks in, to hang out with the boys. He has to use my window because it’s the only one left open since father had to nail shut the one they used in the basement. Well, but, you see, sometimes he stays in my room rather than sleep in Robb and Jon’s. I think because their room is so small. But, my bed isn’t really big enough for two, so he usually sleep on the floor. I figured maybe he would like this better than my tedd-- uh, my blanket. That he likes to use.” 

Margaery stared, dumbfounded. Sansa began to panic. 

“So, yep. That’s why I need a sleeping bag. Anyway, I think mom wanted me home for--”

“Theon Greyjoy sleeps in your _ bed _?” 

“Not like _ that _, Marg. I swear it. We hardly even like each other. It’s just, well, sometimes he needs a place to go, and--”

“_ Sansa _ ,” Margaery sounded scandalized. “You are telling me Theon has slept in your bed and you _ haven’t _had him that way? We are talking about the same Theon right? Blue eyes, drives a BMW, with that bloody beautiful little pout of his?” 

Sansa blinked, bewildered. Of course Theon was attractive. Sansa knew this, but she had never considered that a factor in this equation. Theon was going to be eighteen soon. Sansa was only fifteen. She’d never even kissed a boy. 

“No, of course not.” Sansa didn’t sound panicked now. Her voice was firm. “I told you, it’s not like that Margaery. We’re friends.”

Margaery continued to eye her with skepticism. Sansa did what she could to brush it off, but confused thoughts followed her through the rest of their shopping and even to their ice cream afterwards. Theon had been right. It wasn’t good for people to know they were so close, they’d start to make assumptions. 

* * *

Luckily for Sansa, it didn’t take very long for her to find a solution to this problem. Or, rather, the solution found her. It slithered up to her at Margaery’s spring equinox party wearing a Valentino suit and sunglasses. 

“Sansa, is it?” Joffrey Baratheon asked, as though he hadn’t sat next to her at lunch every day for a year. He looked her up and down with an exaggerated bounce of his head. “I have to say, yellow is really your color. Want to have a beer with me?” 

Sansa agreed, her heart pounding in her chest. They shared a beer, then another, then a conversation with words, and another with tongues. By the end of the night Sansa felt silly for all the fretting she had done over kissing. It was really quite easy. 

Robb drove them home from the party. Sansa sat in the back seat with Theon, who fixed her with a glare the moment she sat down. Her head was still light from the alcohol, and she hoped mother wouldn’t be able to tell. 

“Do you have gum?” Sansa asked Theon. She had to talk loudly over the music Robb was blaring. Now that he had his own car, he had become rather fussy about who got to play music in his car. The answer was Robb, singularly and perpetually. Jon had lost his privileges for playing Nickleback a few months back, and ever since Robb had been apprehensive about sharing the auxiliary cord with anyone, even Sansa. 

Tonight the selection was The Decemberists. Jon groaned as Robb sang, loud and off key. 

“Or a mint?” Sansa tried again, since Theon hadn’t answered her about the gum but instead continued to glare. “I smell like beer.” 

“I’ll say,” Theon hissed, digging in his pocket and tossing a pack of Peppermint Stride into her lap. “Maybe that will wash the taste of Joffrey out, too.” 

Sansa gasped, and looked immediately to the front seat fearful that her brothers had heard. Neither were paying them any attention. Between Robb’s singing and Jon’s complaining they were more than occupied. 

“Shut up,” Sansa hissed. “Don’t tell Robb.” 

“Sansa, what did I tell you about boys my age? They only want one thing--” 

“Okay, okay, _ dad _.” Sansa threw his gum pack back to him. “Shut up. You don’t get to make decisions like that for me. We only kissed. I’m not some hussy--” 

“I’m not saying you are--”

“Well you seem to think I have no self control!” Sansa’s voice raised loud enough that Robb glanced in their directly. Sansa huffed and stared forward. “We’re done talking about this.”

Robb chuckled. 

“You two fight like a married couple.” 

* * *

Sansa and Joffrey started officially dating in May. This complicated Sansa and Theon’s arrangement in unforeseen ways. The next time he came through her window after Sansa and Joffrey announce their relationship, both of them stood awkwardly in the center of the room the way they did the very first night. 

“Is Robb awake?” Theon asked finally. 

“Um, I suppose I could go wake him. Dad hasn’t done his check yet though.” 

“I think I better go with the guys. Don’t want your precious Joffrey finding out other men have been sharing your bed.” 

“Oh, come off it, Theon. We aren’t sleeping together, and you know it. Neither are Joffrey and I.” _ Yet, _Sansa’s mind supplied unhelpfully. She pointed to the sleeping bag beside her bed, already unrolled and accompanied by a pillow. “I was going to make you sleep on the floor anyway.” 

“Sansa I know you’re not this dumb. He isn’t going to think very lightly of it if he finds out I see his girlfriend in her nightclothes more often than he does.” 

Sansa blushed. He was right, and she knew it. Their arrangement wasn’t exactly normal, her discussion with Margeary had proved as much. 

“Fine, go wake Robb then. You can hide under his bed.”

Theon looked pained. 

“Don’t be mad at me. It’s for your sake.” 

“Sure it is,” Sansa said primly, sweeping him from the room. “And this is for yours.” She flipped him her middle finger and quietly shut the door. 

* * *

Things continued in the same manner through June. It wasn’t until the final evening of the month that Theon climbed through the window and didn’t ask for Robb. In fact, he didn’t ask for anything, not ice nor any aspirin. He wasn’t bleeding, there were no bruises on his face. He looked perfectly fine, except for the fact that he was trembling from head to toe, and his bottom lip was red from where his teeth had pressed into it painfully. Sansa eyed him, worried. 

“What’s going on?” Sansa asked. Theon didn’t say anything, just stepped toward her, raised his arms as if to reach to her, then dropped them again. “Theon, what’s going on? You’re scaring me.” 

Theon turned from her suddenly and threw himself on her bed. He let out a long groan, curling on himself, and then grumbled what might have been a sentence into her pillows, which he had pulled to his chest. 

“What’s happened?” Sansa asked, climbing onto her bed beside him and tugging the pillows from his face. 

“I don’t know what to do,” Theon said, eyes squeezed shut. 

“About what?” Sansa thought a moment. The boys had been talking a lot about college. Jon had settled on one in Oregon while Robb had gotten a full ride to Boston University. “About college? Are you still trying to decide if you’re going with Jon?” 

“No, not that.” Theon opened his eyes. In the darkness Sansa could only see the whites of them, but she knew he was looking straight at her. “My dad is going back to Maine. Things aren’t going well with the family business and I guess he needs to step in. He gave me an ultimatum, Sansa. Either I… Either I go…” 

Theon choked on his own words and sat up abruptly. He snatched the pillow back from her and clutched it to his chest again. Sansa would have found it endearing if she wasn’t so annoyed with his avoidance. He was still trembling. Sansa tried a different approach. She scooted closer to him and took one of his hands. He flexed his fingers against hers. 

“He told me I can either go with him, and not come back or I can stay here, and lose my inheritance. He told me he will disinherit me. He--” Theon’s fingers tightened around Sansa’s as his body racked with what may have been a laugh or a sob. “He told me I can either choose to be a real Greyjoy, or he would strip my name so I can be the Stark I ‘always wanted to be’.”

Sansa heard the anger in his voice. She saw the way his father’s words shook him. Even so, she had a hard time seeing the downside to this. 

“Oh, but Theon this is good, don’t you see? Don’t go with him, stay here and be a Stark.” 

Theon pulled his hand away and fixed her with a dark glare. 

“_ Be a Stark _ ?” Theon repeated, sounding disgusted. “How do you propose I _ be a Stark _? Should I go pick up my shiny new Stark name at city hall? Waltz down to your parents and announce I’m their new son?” 

“They would let you. They’d do whatever it took to make you a Stark for real. They could adopt you-- or--”

Theon shook his head and turned away from her. 

“I’m eighteen in two months. They can’t adopt me now.” 

“Yes they can, I’ve heard about adults being adopted--”

“I don’t want to be a Stark!” Theon interrupted. “I want to be a Greyjoy. I want to--” Theon broke off with a shudder, then steeled himself to continue. “I want to make my father proud. I want to be a real Greyjoy, like Yara. Like--” 

He couldn’t continue. Theon folded in on himself, holding Sansa’s pillow tight to his chest. Sansa held her breath and watched him for a long moment. He was crying in earnest now, fingers clenching and unclenching in feathered pillow. Sansa scooted closer and wrapped her arms around his shaking shoulders. She rested her cheek against his shoulder blade, her hair draped across his back and arms. Theon leaned into her, but didn’t move from his hunched position. 

Sansa held him for a long time. She rocked them both, repeating the sweet words she had offered him the last time this happened. It was strange being this close to Theon, holding him in a way she hadn’t ever held Joffrey. Her and Joffrey had spent a great deal of time kissing, and he’d even worked his way under her bra once, but they never held each other like this. 

After what felt like a lifetime Theon sat up, shifting his arms restlessly. Sansa pulled away from him enough to allow him to readjust. To her surprise, the only adjusting he did was to wind his arms around her waist and tug her closer. He pressed his face to the side of her neck and said softly, “I don’t want to go, but I think I have to. I don’t want to leave you, this family. But I can’t be my own person if I don’t.” 

“You can,” Sansa purred, running her hands along his spine, “You are already your own person. You can be anyone you want, and you can do that here. With us. With people who love you.” 

Theon shook his head. Such a tiny motion, yet Sansa felt it through her entire body. 

“My family is the one who loves me. They’re the ones I should be with.” 

“We’re your family.” 

He shook his head again. 

“You are,” he agreed. “But you aren’t. Greyjoy, remember?” 

Sansa sighed. It was no use pressing the issue further. Besides, she hardly wanted to spend the night arguing now that she knew her days with Theon were limited. 

“You really are going to go then? To Maine, with your father?” 

“Yes,” Theon said, miserably. 

“Well that’s hardly far. We will visit you. Or you can visit here.” 

Theon snorted. “Father won’t allow that.”

“You’ll be an adult. You can do whatever you want. Your own person, remember?” 

Theon didn’t say anything, just nuzzled closer. Sansa tightened her hold and rested her chin on the top of Theon’s head. 

Sansa didn’t say anything else. She tugged them into a lying position and removed herself from Theon long enough to wrap them in her comforter. She didn’t even consider having him sleep on the floor, or in Robb’s room. She didn’t want to be separated from him for a single minute. Not all the lemon drops in the world could fix the sadness they shared that night.


	4. Chapter 4

###  CHAPTER FOUR

Soundtrack: [_Shell Game_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLAMg6o5w2s) | [_Changing_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Z7DiKQDuls) | [_All This Could Be Yours_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KatacDa_wsA)

August brought with it heartbreak unlike anything Sansa had known. Jon left first, at the start of the month. Robb left four days later. Theon was last. Sansa shared tearfilled goodbyes with all of them, and watched their cars pull away from the house for what felt like forever. She know Jon was already planning to come back for Thanksgiving break, and she was sure Robb would do the same. Sansa had never spent more than a week without her brothers. She wasn’t sure she could survive. 

Theon didn’t say anything about coming back for holidays, or ever again for that matter. He gave Sansa a hug, and she gave him a lemon drop, and then he was gone. 

Sansa found solace in her sister. They resumed their checker games and Mario Kart marathons. Arya would be starting high school this year, and Sansa made it her personal vow to not ignore her sister the way the boys had done her. They would be best of friends at school, or at least Sansa thought. As it turned out, Arya was the one who did most of the ignoring. She made new friends quickly, and it was rare that Sansa could get a word in with her at school without Gendry and Hot Pie looming near her. They took lunches in the woodshop classroom, carving fake swords so Arya could give them makeshift fencing lessons. 

Sansa continued to take lunch under the stairs. Her popularity had grown exponentially ever since her and Joffrey had started dating. She still ate lunch with Margeary and planned out new costume ideas (they had started volunteering with the student acting troupe to make costumes for productions), and on weekends Joffrey would sometimes accompany Sansa to the Tyrell house where they resumed their movie evenings. 

Yet, no matter how much time she spent with the others, nothing could fill the hole her brothers had left. Sansa was all alone on the third floor, and the nights were downright peaceful compared to how it used to be. Catelyn hadn’t so much as raised her voice since the boys left. It felt too quiet, too boring without her brothers. 

Not to say there hadn’t been disagreements, of course. Ned and Catelyn were staunchly opposed to her relationship with Joffrey. He had already graduated, and was much too old for her. Arya said it was gross, and Bran, who had just entered middle school, said he didn’t like Joffrey because “he called me tyke.” Sansa didn’t care. She loved Joffrey. He was sweet, and handsome, and bought her expensive gifts and beautiful flowers. They didn’t talk much, he rather preferred to see her lips working toward other goals, but that was alright. Sansa loved him. She told mother and father so, told Arya and Bran so, and told herself so, even on nights when she wasn’t sure she believed it anymore. 

Toward the end of Sansa’s sophomore year, Joffrey took an internship with a branch of his father’s company in New York City. They were long distance for almost a year until he returned with an engagement ring and news that he had been offered a full time position out here. Six figures, very respectable. He was already putting in offers on a few high rise apartments in Manhattan. He wanted Sansa to go with him, to wear his ring and be his wife. Sansa was thrilled. Ned was not.

“You are _ seventeen, _Sansa! You aren’t getting married at seventeen!”

“I’m not asking to get married at seventeen! We’ll marry once I graduate, after we go to New York. I’ll be eighteen, father. There’s nothing you can do about it.” 

They argued and argued and argued. Sometimes the argument stopped and picked back up again right where it left off days later. As Sansa’s graduation drew nearer she made arrangements to move to the big city with Joffrey. They were going to leave the weekend after her graduation ceremony. Sansa was already enrolled in a local college there. She was going to study foreign affairs. Sansa wasn’t sure she’d felt this kind of joy since before the boys left, before their family was split up and shipped around the country. 

It was Margaery that told her the truth. She arrived on Sansa’s doorstep one evening, mascara streaked and eyes red. 

“Sansa,” she said, refusing to meet Sansa’s eyes. “Sansa, I’m sorry. I have to tell you something. I can’t let you go without knowing.” 

Margaery had been sleeping with Joffrey ever since Joffrey got back from his internship. They were both graduated, and spent plenty of time with each other during the days while Sansa had been in class. She’d known this, of course, but she’d thought the best of her friends. Thought they were watching movies or drinking champagne. And they were, they were just also fucking. Sansa couldn’t believe it. She felt wretched. That night she visited Joffrey at the Baratheon home and accused him of cheating. He admitted to it with a lazy shrug, saying, “Well you hardly ever put out, so I figured I had to get my kicks somewhere.” 

Sansa threw the engagement ring in his face and stomped from the house. Last she heard, it was Margeary that wore that ring now, and it was her that shared the Manhattan apartment with Joffrey. They left earlier than planned, now that Joffrey didn’t have to wait for Sansa to finish school. Sansa spent the days leading up to her graduation in tears. 

Robb and Jon arrived a few days after the breakup. They came back for summer vacation every year, and this year they managed to come back a bit early for Sansa’s graduation. Sansa locked herself in her room. She didn’t want to see them, didn’t want to hear the same “I told you so” that she’d heard from mother and father and Arya and everyone else. Robb, it seemed, was not having any of that. He pounded on her door. 

“Sansa, please just let me in. I want to talk. I know you’re going through a rough time, I just wanted to see my little sister, give her a hug.” 

“Go away,” Sansa moaned, miserable. “You’re just going to call me a dumb little girl like everyone else has. I don’t want to hear it.” 

“Sansa, that’s not it, I would never--”

“Go away!” Sansa pounded on the door back to him. She heard a sigh, then retreating footsteps. She had won. Sansa curled herself under her blankets, resuming the same sorrowful position she had been in all week. She snuggled under the teddy bear blanket, wishing it would bring her even a fraction of the comfort it did when she was a child. 

Her thoughts were interrupted by a knocking, this time not on her door, but her window. Sansa shot upright, fearfully. There was Robb, hunched on the eave outside her window the way she had seen Theon Greyjoy dozens of times. He looked a little wobbly, and knocked again, peering through the glass to her. 

“_ Robb _,” Sansa gasped, exasperated. She threw open the window and pulled him inside. “You complete ass. You can’t just break in--”

He crushed her into a bear hug, pressing his cheek to the crown of her head. 

“Sansa, I’m sorry. I’m sorry anyone did that to you. I’m sorry Joffrey is such a prick, you didn’t deserve any of that. I’m sorry Jon and I weren’t here to teach him a lesson before he ran off to New York. I’m sorry, Sansa. Truly.”

Sansa cried into her brother’s arms. She hadn’t done this since they were children. It felt safe, it felt like home. Eventually she unlocked the door, and Jon joined them in Sansa’s room carrying a jar of peanut butter and some lemon drops. The trio licked peanut butter from spoons (one of their favorite snacks as kids) and let Sansa rant about the entire ordeal. She talked until her voice was hoarse. Robb suggested watching a movie, and Sansa picked _ The Fellowship of the Ring. _ The boys were surprised.

“Well none of my usual rom-coms seem like any fun now, you know? And at least this has little goblin things getting stabbed. I can pretend they’re Joffrey.” 

Robb and Jon rolled with laughter. They huddled in to watch the movie, sharing space on Sansa’s tiny bed. After a while she let out a sigh and said, “I wish Theon was here. It doesn’t feel right doing this without him.”

Robb hummed in agreement. He looked sad. 

“Have you talked to him since he left?” Sansa asked. 

Robb shook his head. Jon did too. 

“I tried texting him a couple times but never heard back. Tried calling once, and the number was disconnected. He’s not on Facebook or Instagram or anything.” Robb shrugged one shoulder. “He just… disappeared.” 

Sansa nodded. She had tried to contact Theon too, but had much of the same experience. She hadn’t heard a word about him since the day he left. For all she knew, he never even made it to Maine. 

“Do you think his dad is keeping him from contacting us?” Jon asked. 

“Could be, but he’s an adult now. He doesn’t have to listen to his dad anymore.”

“You’re an adult now, too,” Sansa pointed out. “But you still listen when mom asks you to do the dishes or take out the trash.”

“Duh,” Robb rolled his eyes. “That’s because I don’t hate mom. Because mom never gave me bruises or tried to disinherit me. Balon Greyjoy has always been a sack of shit. Theon should have ditched him years ago.” 

Sansa thought about that night, years ago now. How Theon had shook, had told her he didn’t want to be Stark, he wanted to be a Greyjoy. 

“He wanted to prove himself to his family. Imagine how it would be for you if dad suddenly said you weren’t really a part of the family.” Sansa turned to Jon. He would understand this better than Robb. Ned was his father, yes, but Catelyn was not his mother. “What if dad told you that you weren’t a Stark, that you had to _ earn _the name or lose it?” 

Jon’s shoulders fell. He shrugged. 

“You’d do whatever you could to feel like a part of the family you were born into, I reckon. I know I would,” Sansa stared at the laptop screen blankly, her heart heavy. “So, he’s doing whatever he can. He’ll be back around eventually. I think.” 

Robb placed an arm around Sansa’s shoulders and tugged her into a one armed hug. She leaned her head on his shoulder and watched the rest of the movie in silence. 

* * *

Over the next few weeks, Robb and Jon helped Sansa apply to last-minute scholarships and register for an open enrollment college in Montpelier. It was about a two hour drive from her parents' house, so Sansa rented a small apartment just around the corner from the school. The boys helped her move all her boxes in during the last week they were in town. Ned and Catelyn came to visit her first week on her own, and helped her cook dinner in the tiny kitchen. Gendry and Arya came to visit as soon as Gendry got a car, and the three of them went to a comic book shop that Arya had been begging to go to (there weren’t any comic book shops in Highgate, where the Starks lived). It doubled as an ice cream parlor, and the trio taste tested each others flavors as Arya poured over her new Watchmen compendium. 

Life was good when she had visitors, but it was rather lonely most of the time. Sansa cooked alone, cleaned alone, went to and from school alone. Having grown up in a house with five siblings, alone wasn’t something she was very used to. Sansa hated it. She hated the silence, the emptiness of coming home to nothing and leaving home for nothing. 

After a lot of searching, and a little help from Arya, Sansa eventually tracked down Yara Greyjoy on Facebook. She didn’t quite expect a response when she sent her pleading message (draft one had read: “Hi, I’m Sansa Stark, and I really fucking miss your brother. Could you tell him to call me?”), but she received one nonetheless. Yara sounded glad that Sansa had been in touch, but told her that none of them knew where Theon was, either. He had left Maine two years ago. Yara assumed he was back in Vermont, but if Sansa hadn’t seen him, then she guessed he could be anywhere. 

Her last message read: “Let me know if you find him. He’s a dick, but I miss him too.”

Sansa had hoped talking to Yara would put her mind at ease. Instead, it lit a feverish fire inside her, a desire to find Theon and make sure he was safe. She tried asking around in her parents' town, but no one had seen him. She asked her dad to ask around at his office, but no luck there. She kept an eye out for him in Montpelier, but found no trace of him.

What she did find, instead, was Ramsay Bolton. Handsome, charming, and with eyes a shade of blue she hadn’t seen for years (not since Theon), it didn’t take long for her to develop a crush. They met in bars and had study sessions together in the campus library. He was kind, clever, and funny, all the things she hoped for in a man. Soon they started dating, and soon after that, he started asking her to run errands for him. Nothing unusual, just: “Drop this package off at the post office,” or, “I have something to pick up from Mark down the street, would you mind too terribly?” 

Six months in, things had started to change. Sansa found his needles in the bathroom, started to notice changes in his behavior and track marks on his arms. She realized the errands she was running weren’t innocent at all. She was his drug runner. She was committing felonies for him daily. 

Sansa tried to leave. Ramsay gave her a black eye and told her that if she left, he would expose her crimes to everyone -- the school, her parents, the police. She would lose her scholarship, her reputation, her freedom. Ramsay took her phone, and deleted all her contacts. He monitored who she talked to and where she went. Sansa didn’t know how to escape. So, Sansa stayed. She didn’t know what else to do. 

It was January when Sansa came across her next unexpected door. She had just finished her third semester, and Ramsay ordered her to do a pickup from one of his suppliers just outside of town. She drove through the snow, her mind blank. She tried her hardest to keep it blank these days. Thinking about anything -- her family, her old life, Theon -- was much too difficult these days. 

Sansa knocked on the door as if in a trance. It was several minutes before anyone answered, but when they finally did Sansa found herself staring into a very familiar face. Sansa gasped, feeling as if all the breath had disappeared from her lungs at once. Theon blinked back at her, expression just as bewildered as her own. 

“Theon,” Sansa said finally, voice barely a whisper. “What are you doing here?”

“What am _ I _ doing here? What are _ you _doing here? Sansa-- I-- How did you find me?” 

Theon looked wretched. His cheeks were pitted with scars, and his cheekbones stuck out far more than she remembered. He still had dark circles under his eyes, though. The way he’d always had. It didn’t seem as though time had been good to Theon since their separation. Sansa supposed it hadn’t been all that good to her, either. 

“Ramsay sent me,” Sansa said simply. Theon’s face crumpled. 

“Ramsay? Sansa, what are you doing mixed up with him?”

Sansa shifted uncomfortably and shook her head. She bit her lip to keep from crying. 

“Theon, I need help. You have to help me get away from him. I didn’t know what he was like-- I didn’t know what I was getting into. He has information on me, he can blackmail me. I found some mail the other day, I don’t think he’s given me his real name, I don’t think I can go to the police. Oh, please, Theon, call mom-- Or don’t, I can’t let them know I’ve been mixed up in this--” 

Theon shook his head the entire time she spoke. He took two steps away from her, raising his hands in an attempt to quiet her. That only made Sansa more frantic. Theon finally cut her off. 

“I can’t help you. I’m sorry.”

He handed her a lunchbox, which Sansa knew was for Ramsay. Theon shut the door in Sansa’s face, and she heard the click of the deadbolt. She pounded on the door. When that didn’t work Sansa collapsed on the doormat and wept. She called Theon every nasty name she knew, but still he didn’t open up.


	5. Chapter 5

### CHAPTER FIVE 

Soundtrack: [_Strangers_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17rcGBJUG_Q) | [_Summertime_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITIPYRcKbKI) | [_Why Why Why_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iu41z7Ozqd8)

Sansa didn’t breathe a word to Ramsay about what had happened. She hoped, with any luck, Theon wouldn’t either. She couldn’t be sure though, and her hands shook with involuntary anxiety all through the next week. She couldn’t meet Ramsay’s eye, terrified that if she did, he’d be able to see it in her somehow. She’d try to betray him. She didn’t imagine he would take lightly to that. 

Her next unexpected door came on a Sunday. The sun had gone down hours ago, and Sansa washed dishes in Ramsay’s kitchen. The television was on in the other room, and occasionally she could hear him laugh. Sansa practiced keeping her mind blank, but was interrupted by the trill of the doorbell. Sansa’s heartbeat quickened. 

“What the fuck?” Ramsay said in the other room. “Sansa! Were you expecting anyone?” 

She peeked around the doorframe and shook her head. Ramsay was trying to get a glimpse out the window, but there was no way to see the porch from the living room. 

“You answer it.” He darted to the backroom, to cover the drugs, most likely. Sansa crept to the door and opened it hesitantly. 

Theon stood nonchalantly in the door frame. He had a backpack slung over one shoulder, and a passive expression on his face. He looked at her as if she was a stranger. 

“Ramsay here?” He asked. She blinked at him, feeling tears well in her eyes. How could he look at her as if he didn’t know her? As if they hadn’t shared their childhood together only a few years ago? She figured it had something to do with the track marks on his arm, and the fine powder no doubt weighing down his backpack. 

“He’s in the back,” Sansa said, helplessly. “I’ll get him for you.” 

Sansa lead Theon into the sitting room before obediently trotting to the backroom to tell Ramsay he had a visitor. He looked angry when he stepped into the living room, but his face transformed into that sickeningly charming grin he used for business the moment he saw Theon.

“Ahh… Greyjoy. Good to see you. I don’t think we had an… appointment.” 

“Figured I’d drop by. I got a wicked new supply I think you’ll like. Some of the best shit I’ve tried.” Theon stood from the couch and shouldered his backpack. He nodded toward the back room. “Shall we?”

“Ah, a try before you buy gig. I like it,” Ramsay purred, opening the door to the back bedroom wide enough for Theon to follow him through. “Be a doll, finish the cleaning,” he said to Sansa before shutting the door. 

Sansa returned to the dishes. She let her tears flow freely as she worked. It felt as if her heart had been shattered a million times, then a million more for good measure. When Sansa heard the door to the back room click open, she hastily wiped her eyes with the kitchen towel. She tried to control her breath and collect herself. She best go offer them drinks. Ramsay usually liked her to bring him a whiskey and coke after he’d shot up. Sansa turned to leave the kitchen, and very nearly crashed directly into someone rounding the corner very quickly. 

It was Theon. He grabbed her shoulders to steady her and searched her face for something. Sansa was frozen, shocked into stillness by Theon’s frantic expression. 

“Does he know where you live?” Theon asked quickly. 

“What? Y-yes. He’s been to my apartment on Wicker Street--”

“No, not here. Not in Montpelier. I mean your parents’ house, in Highgate.” 

“No. I never told him where I was from.”

“Good. Collect anything you have. We’re going. We have about an hour.”

“Theon, what--”

“The stuff I gave him is cut with other drugs. He’ll be asleep for a while, but I don’t think he took enough to OD. I tried to talk him into it, but I think he suspected something was weird. Sansa, please just hurry. No more questions.”

Sansa obeyed. She had never been more happy to obey. After months of waiting on Ramsay hand and foot, running drugs for him like a carrier pidgeon, and letting him fuck her any way he wanted, this was the best command she had heard in a long time. 

Theon still drove the BMW with mismatched doors. Sansa laughed when she saw it. Her laugh quickly turned to a sob as Theon opened the door for her and ushered her inside. 

“You said your apartment was on Wicker Street. Where on Wicker Street?” Theon asked. Sansa gave him broken directions as he drove, but he got there intuitively enough. He gave her thirty minutes to pack up anything of value. She only took ten. She packed her photo album, her teddy bear blanket, and her laptop. Everything else didn’t matter to her right now. All that mattered was Theon’s car going thirty miles over the speed limit as he whisked her away from town, away from Ramsay. He was taking her home. 

* * *

It was a two hour drive home. Theon sped the entire way. For a long time they didn’t talk, until finally Theon glanced to Sansa in the passenger seat and chuckled. 

“You still have that fucking blanket.”

Sansa tugged it tighter around her shoulders. “I like it.”

“I like it, too,” Theon laughed. And then Sansa did something that felt very strange to her. She smiled. She actually grinned, looking at Theon sitting across the console from her the way they had when they were kids. She felt as though she should have been clutching an ice cream cone, Arya in the backseat chattering on about fencing practice. It felt good, better than anything she’d felt in a long time. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t come for you sooner,” Theon said, stealing another glance her way. 

“That’s okay. At least you came.”

“If he’s alive he’s going to come looking for us. I can’t go to the police, Sansa. I’m complicit in everything.”

“I know. I am, too. But so is he. So,maybe he won’t go to the police either. He told me he would get me arrested if I ever left…” Sansa paused. “But that would mean he would be arrested, too. He’s the junkie, I’ve never touched the stuff.” Sansa didn’t miss the way Theon flinched at the word junkie. “We can hide from him. If he doesn’t find us, then we’re safe.” 

Theon worried at his lips. 

“Hide, huh?” Theon snorted. Sansa knew he hated that word. What had he said, all those years ago over cocoa? _ I need to figure something out or else I’m just going to spend my whole life hiding. _Hadn’t he done just that, though? 

“Theon, why did you disappear from us? Where have you been?”

“Isn’t it obvious, Sans? Maine didn’t work out. I got messed up with the wrong people.” His hands gripped the steering wheel tightly. “I don’t think you’ll like who I am anymore.” 

“I like you just fine right now. Well, I think I’d like you a little better if you could put on the heater.” 

Theon quirked his lips. He fiddled with the dashboard until warm air rushed to Sansa’s chilled face. Theon let out a quiet sigh.

“I’ve missed you, Sansa.”

“I’ve missed you, too.” She paused, heart in her throat as she turned her next words over in her head. “You should have come home.”

He made a choked noise and shook his head. 

“Couldn’t. Still can’t.” 

“What do you mean you still can’t? Isn’t that what’s happening? Mom and dad will take us in, we’ll be safe in Highgate.”

“Your mom hardly liked me when I was just a dirty teenager, you really think she’ll let me in now I’m a _ junkie _.” Sansa didn’t like the way he used the word, her word. She bit her lip 

“She’ll want to help you.” 

“You Starks, always wanting to help.” He made it sound cruel, something to be ashamed of. Sansa shrunk a bit in her seat. “I can do it on my own.”

_ You don’t have to _, Sansa wanted to say. She couldn’t. She remembered this same old argument from their youth. Theon was his own person. He wanted to live his life without Stark charity. Sansa had to remember that. 

“How about this,” Sansa tried again. “We won’t help you. You do it however you want to. But my bedroom window stays open, in case you ever need it.” 

Theon smiled, and offered a small nod. Sansa beamed, resting her head against the window and watching the trees zoom past the window. They listened to an oldies station the rest of the drive, and sang along to Tom Petty as the snow fell around them. 

They arrived in Highgate in the dead of night. As Theon pulled to the curb he chuckled softly. 

“Haven’t done this in awhile. I used to park around the block just there, so your dad couldn’t see my car when he left for work.” 

“Come in with me, please. Just stay for the night.” 

“I can’t. I have to cover my own trail here, Sans. He knows where I lived. He’ll be after me, too.” 

Sansa sighed and snatched his hand from the steering wheel and squeezed it tight in both her own. 

“Thank you for this. Please don’t hide from me again. Come back please, if only for a night.” 

Theon nodded once and squeezed her hand in return. Sansa pressed a light kiss to his cheek, so brief Theon hardly registered what happened, before she darted from the car and up the stone steps to her parents’ house. 

Ned and Catelyn were equal parts confused and excited to see their daughter. Ramsay had let her keep in touch with them enough for her to lie to them and reassure them that everything was fine. She said she was happy in Montpelier, that she had made new friends and had a great new boyfriend. No, she wouldn’t be coming home for Christmas this year. No, now wasn’t a good time for Arya to visit. No, she didn’t want to come home more than anything, with every fiber of her being. 

Sansa didn’t tell them about Theon. She said she ran away and paid a cab to take her the whole way. She cried into her father’s arms, and let her mother stroke her hair like she used to when Sansa was ill. Arya watched from the corner of the room, her face clouded with shadows. Bran and Rickon hugged their sister and rejoiced that she’d returned. 

Robb and Jon came home shortly after Sansa arrived, each of them having their own separate interrogation for Sansa about the man who had done this to her. She told them as little as she could, and begged them not to go looking for Ramsay. Neither seemed satisfied by this, and Sansa was severely off put by the muttered conversations the two of them shared with Arya. The boys recovered some of her stuff from her old apartment. They told her it looked like someone had broken in, cleared most of it out. She didn’t doubt that this was true. 

She kept Theon’s involvement a secret from all of them. 

And when he snuck into her room a month after she arrived, she kept that a secret, too. The snow had started falling in earnest again, and the temperature hovered around ten degrees at night. Just as the sun was going down on a Saturday, Sansa heard a familiar tap on the window. It was the same knock they had used as kids -- the opening riff from Queen’s _ Under Pressure _. Sansa spun around and rushed to the window, opening it without a moment's hesitation. 

Theon climbed through and offered her a crooked smile. He trembled from the cold. Sansa hugged him then. She couldn’t help it. He hugged her back tightly, his nose icy against her warm throat. They huddled together on the bed like children, and Sansa suggested they watch a movie for old time’s sake. Theon agreed. They put on _ The Fellowship of the Ring _\-- also for old time’s sake -- but they didn’t watch a single minute of it. Instead they talked in hushed whispers through the night.

Sansa told him about Joffrey and her engagement, and he seemed to bite his tongue when she told him how it ended. “_ You were right, of course. He only wanted one thing. Don’t get too excited, I’m still not thanking you for being a prick about it. _” She told him about Arya’s relationship with Gendry, and that Jon was going to school to be a Park Ranger and had signed on to an expedition in Alaska next year. Robb was engaged, Bran was nearly finished with high school, and Rickon was a local chess champion. Then Sansa told him how she’d ended up with Ramsay, and how everything had gotten worse from there. 

Theon was a good listener, but when it came his turn to share he kept his mouth shut. She didn’t force him. She talked to him about her plans to re-enroll in college someday, to own a cottage, to finally finish the damn _ Lord of the Rings _trilogy. They fell asleep leaning against one another. When Sansa awoke the next morning, Theon was gone. 

Theon’s visits continued through the winter. Sometimes they talked. Or rather, Sansa talked. Sometimes Theon decided to, as well. On one of their visits Sansa asked him point blank if he was still doing drugs. He looked ashamed, but admitted yes. 

“Are you trying to stop?”

“I don’t know. Yes. I think so.” 

“Please, Theon. You need to. If you need help, just ask.” 

“Of course I need help,” he snapped, turning his face away from her. “But it isn’t you who can help me. It’s me.” 

Sansa didn’t ask anymore. She knew he would talk to her about it when he was ready. 

Except, he never did. Instead, one afternoon in June the Starks came home from a Sunday matinee to find their house ransacked, all electronics missing, the emergency jar in the kitchen cleared out, and not a single sign of forced entry. Only Sansa’s bedroom window was unlocked. The police didn’t have any leads, but Sansa had no doubt. 

Sansa began locking her window after that. She considered installing bird spikes on the ledge and taping a big “FUCK YOU” sign to the pane, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Theon didn’t come around again.


	6. Chapter 6

###  CHAPTER SIX

Soundtrack: [_All I Ever Wanted_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKR9b9gixk0) | [_This Losing_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dec1I1J-f38) | [_Wildflowers_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AldoDm2bV04)

Sansa arranged to move out of the Stark house as soon as she could after the break-in. She told her parents that she was confident enough to live on her own again, and wanted to prove herself as an adult again. She promised not to go far this time. Ned helped her find a small cottage only a few blocks from the Stark house, and Robb and Jon helped her pack and transport what little stuff she recovered from her old apartment. 

“What’s going on with you, Sans?” Robb asked one evening after they had finished moving in her living room furniture. He had his arm slung around her shoulders, and Sansa squirmed. He was quite sweaty. “All I hear are sighs from you these days. Did something else happen with this Ramsay guy?”

“No, nothing like that.”  _ It’s just that I know who robbed mom and dad, and oh boy, you aren’t going to be happy, Robb.  _ “Just thinking about old stuff, I guess.”

Robb didn’t seem convinced. He raised an eyebrow at her, but let her go. Sansa should have known he would get it out of her one way or another. That night he went out to pick up takeout and came back with a bottle of gin that Sansa was most certain hadn’t come from the Thai restaurant. He poured the three of them a drink before dinner, then one with dinner, then one for afterward, and soon Sansa found her tongue wasn’t as controlled as she remembered it being. 

Jon unpacked a box of nicknacks onto her shelf, and held one up with a chuckle. It was a wooden ballerina figurine, held together with packing tape. Jon said, “Heh, remember when we broke this, one of those nights we snuck Theon into your room? It caused such a ruckus, thought we woke the whole house.”

Suddenly Sansa was crying and stuttering to her brothers about Theon and Ramsay and the last night she’d seen him. She told them everything. Theon rescuing her from Ramsay, their nightly visits, the drugs, the talking, the touching, and finally, about her open window. Robb was furious. She knew he would be. Jon just scooted to her side and hugged her tightly. The two of them sat on the rug for a long time while Robb paced the length of the living room, dark words on his tongue. 

Sansa didn’t remember getting to bed that night. She awoke in her bed, Robb and Jon asleep beside one another on the floor of her bedroom. They had one blanket between the two of them, and it looked like Jon had won command of it sometime through the night. 

Over breakfast she begged them not to go after Theon. Jon watched her with sad eyes. 

“If that’s what you want, Sansa. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to.”

Robb disagreed. 

“Fuck that.  _ Fuck. That.  _ He ghosted our family for years, then he hits up my sister just to rip off my parents? Parents that helped him? That housed him for years?” 

“He isn’t in the right state of mind, Robb,” Sansa argued. “I’ve seen what addiction like this does to people. He needs help.”

“He’s always needed fucking  _ help.  _ He never takes it, that’s been the goddamn problem our whole lives!” 

Robb vowed to find Theon. Despite Sansa’s pleading, he left with a determined look on his face. Jon made Sansa coffee, and listened to Sansa talk about Theon, and everything they’d shared. She told him how even back then, when they were kids, she would sneak Theon in without telling him and Robb. She told him about all the movie nights, and about the day she found out he was moving to Maine. All the things she hadn’t realized were secrets. To her, they were just memories she had kept sacred, kept close to her heart only for her.

When she was finished, Jon asked, “Are you in love with him?”

Sansa shrugged. Oddly enough, it was a question she felt as though she’d already asked herself, always been asking herself. After a moment she said, “I think someday I could be, if he ever got his shit together long enough for me to give him a chance.”

* * *

Sansa spent the next several weeks searching for Theon any way she could think to. She scoured the internet for anything about him -- arrest records, social media, shady Craigslist ads -- but came up empty handed. She knew Robb was looking for him, too, but since she hadn’t heard that he had been hospitalized by her brother’s fists, she guessed Robb’s search was going similarly to her own. 

Sansa started working at a hobby shop in town, and tried to focus on building her life back up. Yet, no matter how she tried to bury herself in quilting patterns and epoxy glues, her mind was never far from Theon. She searched from him wherever she went, half expecting to find him behind every door she opened. 

In August, Jon left for his trip to Alaska. They bid goodbye on a Friday night, and early Saturday morning Sansa was awoken by her phone ringing shrilly in the darkness. She snatched it from the bed stand. It was two am, and her caller was Jon. 

“Hello?” 

“I found him. He was just arrested in Newark. I saw it on the television, I’m here on a layover.”

“Wait, wait. Theon?” Sansa was already climbing out of her bed and searching for a pair of jeans. “Newark, New Jersey?”

“Yes. Look, my flight is about to take off. Check the state records, you’ll be able to see him. I think it was a smuggling charge.”

“Okay, okay. Got it. Thank you, Jon, for telling me.”  _ For telling me, and not Robb. For giving me this one final chance to bring him back, bring him home. _

“Yeah, yeah, I gotta go. Love you.”

Sansa was already dressed and grabbing her keys before the line went dead. The Burlington airport was a quick drive, and she had boarded the next flight to Newark before the break of dawn. 

* * *

Jon was right. Theon had been arrested for drug smuggling. It was a minor charge, he hadn’t had much with him. She paid the bail with the hobby shop money she’d managed to save. Her annoyance was forgotten the moment she saw him, looking battered in dirty jeans and a threadbare shirt. He was unshaven, and the circles beneath his eyes were the darkest Sansa had ever seen. 

The jailer pushed him into the room. Her heart clenched when he met her eyes, half wild with fear and anguish. 

“What are you doing here?” Theon asked, voice ragged.

“She’s bailing you out, jerk,” the jailer said, rolling his eyes in Sansa’s direction. “He’s your problem now.” 

The man left. Theon shook his head at Sansa, standing with his left arm pinned to his side, his right arm wrapped around his chest so he could clutch at his shoulder nervously. Sansa faced him with her shoulders squared, arms crossed. 

“You shouldn’t be here-- Sansa, the things that I did-- I never meant to--” 

“Don’t.” Sansa held up a hand to silence him. “Stop. I don’t want to talk about what you did. You’re coming back with me, and I’m not letting you sneak away this time. You need to get clean. Do you want to try?” 

Theon nodded. 

“Good. You’re coming to my house. No one but Jon knows about this, and I don’t plan on telling anyone. Just you and me.” 

Theon nodded again. Sansa sighed, and took a step toward him, her arms open at her sides in an invitation. Theon took it. He stepped to her and hugged her close. She returned the embrace. He wept apologies in her shoulder, and she only help him tighter and shook her head. There would be time enough for apologies. Atonement didn’t come from words, Sansa knew. But it wasn’t a bad place to start. 

The months that followed were tough for both of them. Sansa took Theon back to her cottage, and made him a bed on the couch. There was only one bedroom and it was tight quarters, but during the first weeks of Theon’s detox tight quarters were what worked best for them. When Sansa was at work, Theon mostly slept. When she was home, she waited on his needs as often as she could. 

Sansa brought him cold compresses for the fevers, and aspirin for the headaches. She cooked them dinner in the evenings and sat at the dinner table until he finished his meal as though he was a toddler. When Theon’s hands were restless, they spread out jigsaw puzzles on the living room floor; when he needed comfort, she brought him the teddy bear blanket and they huddled together on the couch watching movies; and when he needed to talk she listened. He mostly talked to her about Maine. 

“I was no good at working on the docks. Fisheries just… aren’t really my thing. Too smelly, and everyone is rude and uses chewing tobacco.”

Sansa laughed. She also cried, sometimes, when he told her about his father, and how he had never managed to make Balon proud. Theon told her they’d disagreed over everything, from the way Theon dressed to how he tied bowline knots. They fought a lot too, and eventually Balon had enough. Theon lost his job, his inheritance, and his family name all in one day.

“He can’t really do that, though, right? He can’t strip you of your name. That can’t be legal.”

“It isn’t. There’s nothing he can do about it, I was born a Greyjoy, I’ll die a Greyjoy.” Theon’s words sounded bitter. “But he sure made it clear that he would rather I would have been born a Stark. Said it would have saved him a lot of disappointment in the long run.”

Sansa liked it best when they talked about old times. They joked about the way Robb and Catelyn used to argue, about Jon and how fussy he used to be about his hair. They went to thrift shops together and found clothes for Theon, and furniture for Sansa. Once Theon started feeling better and his hands stopped shaking so much, he bought some wood stain and began restoring Sansa’s second-hand furniture for her while she was at work. He tried to cook dinner on occasion, but was rather bad at remembering to turn off the oven, so Sansa usually felt it necessary to monitor. They finally finished watching  _ The Lord of the Rings  _ trilogy together, and Sansa admitted that, in the end, it really was quite a good story. 

* * *

At the start of December, Sansa got a call from Robb. All the Starks would be coming home for Christmas, and Robb’s fiance would finally be able to get the holiday off work. She was a nurse, and negotiating time off was usually a battle. Sansa had only met her once. She was thrilled by the idea of the party, and assured Robb she would see him there. 

She mentioned the party to Theon over dinner that night. He had cooked spaghetti, and had been telling her authoritatively about his use of fresh basil over dried when Sansa said, “Do you want to come to a party at my parents’ house next weekend?” 

Theon dropped his hand, which had previously been waving around in an attempt to help illuminate his point. He fixed her with a deadpan stare. 

“How can you ask me that?”

“No, really, I think it would be good for you. Robb would be there, of course, and he might be a bit tricky to deal with, but mom and dad don’t know much about what happened. They wouldn’t judge you. And you’re clean now, so you can’t use that as an excuse. They would want to see you, Theon. It’s been years since they’ve heard from you.”

“What happened to ‘just you and me’?”

“Well it can’t be just you and me forever. You’ll have to face my family eventually.”

He shook his head. 

“No. I can’t go back to that house. I can’t be forgiven for what I took from your parents.”

“Theon, please, it’s okay. The insurance covered most of it, and besides, they never found out who it was. They won’t blame you.”

“But I blame me!” Theon turned his face away from Sansa. “Why can’t you see that, Sansa? It’s not their guilt I’m worried about, it’s my own.” 

“Theon, really. If you can’t forgive yourself then how do you expect--”

Theon pushed his plate away from him. 

“If you’re going to keep pressing this, I’m leaving.”

“I’m only trying to help--” 

Theon stood from the table, grabbed his coat, and left the house without another word. Sansa scrambled after him, and hollered his name down the street. He kept walking and didn’t look back. 

Sansa didn’t see him for the rest of the evening, nor the next morning. She left for work with a heavy heart, and returned to find the blankets neatly folded on the couch, Theon’s house key on the kitchen counter, and a note scribbled on her floral stationary. 

_ Sansa,  _

_ You’ve done more for me than anyone could ever be expected to. I don’t deserve the kindness you’ve shown me, but I thank you for it all the same. I can’t be who you want me to be. I’m sorry for that. Please don’t look for me again. Forget about me, and you’ll be better for it. _

_ -T. Greyjoy  _

Sansa stared at the note for a long time. She traced her name over the signature.  _ T. Greyjoy.  _ She had never known him to refer to himself as such, but she knew what it meant. It was a reminder, the same reminder he’d been hurling her way for almost a decade. A Greyjoy, not a Stark. 

There was a bag of lemon drops beside the note. He had written on the cellophane in Sharpie:  _ Don’t be sad.  _ Sansa threw the bag into the sink in frustration, her whole body trembling. Sansa wasn’t sad, she was angry.

* * *

Sansa called Yara first. She told her to be on the lookout for her brother, and to get in contact the moment she heard from him. Sansa spilled every dirty secret she knew about Theon to his sister, and begged Yara to send him back to Sansa if she ever found him. 

“I can’t imagine why you’d want him, little lady. But if you’re deadset, then I’m on your side. I’ll let you know the moment I hear anything.” 

Sansa called Robb next. She told him about bailing Theon out of jail in Newark, and about his most recent betrayal. She told Robb quite firmly, that she was only notifying him out of courtesy. 

“Courtesy? What the fuck does that mean?” Robb bellowed on the phone. 

“It means that he isn’t your target anymore, he’s mine. You’re not the one he has walked all over again and again since you were fifteen. You’re not the one who dumped your saving on his bail money just to have him walk out on you. If you find him, he’s mine. The apologies he owes, he owes to me.” 

Robb, surprisingly, agreed. 

“Fuck, Sans. I don’t know when you became such a badass, but I stand by it. Yeah, if I find him, he’s all yours. On one condition.”

“Oh?”

“Let me be there when you tear him a new one?”

Sansa called Jon next. She didn’t have much to say to him. Mostly she just cried, and cried, and cried. Jon was good about fielding her emotions. He listened, tried to crack a few jokes, and then told her she needed to come up with a plan.

“Whatever you do next it up to you, Sansa. Personally, I think you’re better off forgetting about Theon. We had fun as kids, yes, but he has been nothing but bad news for our family since then. But if you don’t want to forget about him, then you need to compose yourself, and think of a plan.” 

Sansa agreed, and wondered, privately, when Jon started to sound so much like their father. 

Finally, Sansa called the most resourceful person she knew. Arya’s instructions were simple. 

“I’m going to need you to send me any pictures you have of him, any details you remember about his car, and a photocopy of his driver’s license if you have one.”

“What? I don’t have a copy of his license. That’s not a normal thing to have.” 

“You bailed him out of jail, right? There must have been paperwork.”

Come to think of it, there was. 

“Okay, I might have something. I think it at least had his social security somewhere on the document they gave me. I’ll have to dig it out.”

“Perfect. A social would be even better. Oh, and Sansa? Probably best not to mention this to anyone.”

Sansa got Arya the things she asked for, and left her to her business. Arya texted to inform her that she had recruited Bran’s help, since he was rather good with computers these days. Sansa said she didn’t care, so long as Arya wasn’t implicating Bran in anything illegal. Arya didn’t text back. 

* * *

The Stark Christmas party was a grand affair. Catelyn had gone all out with the decorations, and Ned had hired a catering company to supply the desserts. Robb was there with Talisa, and her and Sansa bonded over cocktails in the kitchen for some time. Jon talked up a storm about the gorgeous redhead he had met up North. Conveniently, he didn’t have any photos of her, so none of them believed she existed. Jon’s face turned red, and he turned to the whiskey shortly thereafter. 

Toward the end of the night they exchanged toasts of eggnog and Ned handed around gifts. Sansa got a new clock, a portable phone charger, and a small slip of paper with nothing written on it but an address for a house just outside of town. Arya handed it to her with a smirk and said, “Don’t thank me, it’ll look suspicious.” 

Sansa did thank Arya though, drunkenly and repeatedly, as they straightened up the kitchen together. In-between hiccups, Sansa said, “Really, Arya, I can’t say how much this means to me.”

“I only did it because Robb said that when you found him, you were going to tear Theon a new one. He said you would let him watch. I also would like to be a part of this arrangement.” 

“He’s a goddamn bastard, but I love him,” Sansa hiccuped, “You know?”

“Who? Robb, or Theon?”

Sansa hummed in thought. 

“Both.” 

She hiccuped again. 

* * *

When Sansa plucked up the courage to go find Theon, Arya demanded to accompany her. They drove to the address Arya had provided. It was a small trailer, hidden behind massive maple trees. The BMW sat in the driveway. Sansa got out of the car and approached the house nervously, her hands shaking at her sides. She knocked, but got no answer. She knocked again. 

After the third knock, Arya pushed Sansa aside and pounded on the door, far louder than was polite. 

“Oi! Asshole!”

No response. 

“He has to be here, his car is here,” Sansa supplied, unhelpfully. 

“Oh, he’s in there alright,” Arya said, stretching on her tiptoes to peer through a crack in the blinds. “The fucking coward is just standing behind the door, watching us.” 

“Arya! You can’t just look in people’s windows.”

“I bet he can hear us, the bastard.” She raised her voice and pounded again. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Scared of a couple of girls?”

“Arya, stop it.” Sansa bit her lip, then called through the door as well. “Theon, please come out. I only want to talk.” 

“Sansa only wants to talk. I kind of want to hit you,” Arya shouted. Sansa elbowed her sister in the ribs. Arya elbowed back. 

“Go away,” a voice called from the other side of the door. “I told you not to come looking for me, Sansa.” 

Arya hollered and pounded on the door, but Theon didn’t open up. Eventually Sansa dragged her sister back to the car, and the pair drove home. Sansa felt crestfallen, but not entirely disappointed. She knew where he lived. It wasn’t far from her. She could make him fess up, one way or another. 

* * *

Theon’s house was about a thirty minute drive from Sansa’s own, which meant if she left the house an hour early on the way to work, she could drive to his house and back again and still make it to the hobby shop on time. Every evening, Sansa double checked that her alarm was set an hour early, and every morning she took one lemon drop from the bag Theon had left her, and drove to leave it on the doorstep. Sansa left a note with the first one that said, “Have your lemon drops back. They don’t work if the person making you sad is the one who gives them to you.” 

One by one, Sansa returned the bag of lemon drops Theon had left for her. Most of them were crushed to dust inside their little cellophane wrapper, a side effect from Sansa throwing them around in a fit of rage. She figured that would help solidify the message, if anything. 

When the first bag was empty, Sansa bought another and continued her task. She took a certain malicious relish in leaving the candy on the doorstep every day, knowing that the one she had left the day before had disappeared. He was getting her messages. He couldn’t ignore them forever. 

He didn’t. Two months after Sansa started leaving lemon drops, her doorbell rang at half past nine. Of all the unexpected doors behind which Sansa found Theon Greyjoy, this one was, perhaps, the least unexpected. He stood on her doorstep, the bag of lemon drops in his hands. 

“Why are you doing this?” Theon asked, holding the bag out to her. 

“Because I don’t know how else to get through to you.”

“And littering on my porch was all you could think of? Christ, Sansa, I don’t even like lemon drops.” 

Sansa’s demeanor fell a little. “You never told me that.”

“Well, yeah. It always made you so happy to give them to me. I, well, it made me feel less sad anyway, even if I didn’t like the candy.” 

Sansa stepped aside and motioned her hand to invite Theon inside. He stepped inside the door, but didn’t enter any further into the house. 

“I’m not staying. I only came to ask you to stop bringing these,” he shook the bag in his hand. “Stop making me feel guilty. I’m trying to be good, Sans. Just trying to go to work and live a normal life. I don’t need to see these every day.” 

“Why? Because they remind you of all the shit you’ve put me through? You should be reminded of that. You’ve never apologized for it.” 

“I have! I’ve apologized a thousand times. Here: I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. What else do you want from me?”

“I want you to prove it! You can say it all you want, but you’ve never really owned up for what you’ve done. If you feel guilty about robbing my parents, fine! Apologize to them for it, let them take you to court or whatever else punishment you deserve. If you feel guilty for leaving me behind half a dozen times? Then apologize, and don’t apologize in a note while you scamper off again.” 

Theon looked at the floor, cheeks red with shame. 

“And if you want something from me, or from anyone, be it help or just a friend, just ask it. Just ask it, and let them be the judge of if you deserve it, but don’t condemn yourself before anyone else can. You’re not a bad person, Theon. You’ve just done some bad things.” 

Theon didn’t look at her, just continued to stare at the floor. 

“What if I know that what I want is something I don’t deserve?”

“That’s what I’m talking about! You can’t make that judgement for yourself. Try for it, and the world will tell you whether you deserve it or not.”

“I don’t need the world to tell me. I only need you to.” He met her eyes then. How familiar they were to her, those endless oceans of blue. She’d known them in good times and in bad, in light and dark, in secret and otherwise. 

“I love you, Sansa. I always have, since I was a boy. You’ve always been good, and innocent, and kind, and I’ve never deserved that, even before I did all this shit. I’ve lied to you my whole life. I snuck into your room when I didn’t need to, I told you to breakup with Joffrey not because I thought he didn’t deserve you, but because I thought you should be with me, instead. I should have stayed from the beginning, should have never went to Maine. And I lied to you when I said I didn’t have any choice but to go with my father. You were right, of course you were right. I could have just stayed, and been a Stark. But I always thought there was some kind of pride to being a Greyjoy, something I needed to live up to. Now I know those were just my father’s words in my head. But how can I explain it to you?” He turned his face away, clutching the bag so tightly in his hands his knuckles were white. “How can I explain to you how much I regret it, regret ever saying I didn’t want to be a Stark. Your family is the best thing I’ve ever known. I’m sorry I’ve thrown that away so many times. I wish there was just… a way I could…” 

“Be both a Stark, and a Greyjoy?” Sansa finished for him. Theon shrugged. 

“Yeah, I guess.” 

Sansa considered him for a long moment. She was silent so long he finally raised his eyes to look at her, and shook his head. He turned to leave, one hand on the doorknob. 

“It really seems quite simple to me,” Sansa said finally. He froze, but didn’t look at her. “If you love me, you should tell me, and not follow it up by trying to talk me out of loving you back. Because I do, Theon. I loved you before it all, and I love you now. And if you want to be a Stark so badly, you  _ could  _ just marry me, you know?” 

Theon turned to her, mouth agape. He searched her face for the punchline, but didn’t find it. Sansa just stood there, arms crossed over her chest, looking so much like Catelyn it almost frightened him.

“M-marry you?”

“Well, not right off the bat. Maybe we ought to try dating first.” 

“But-- what about your family? They hate me, Arya said--”

“Arya hates everyone. She especially hates people she kind of loves. All the Starks love you. Robb and Jon will be alright. Jon’s already convinced we’re together, anyway.” 

Theon gaped at her. 

“It’s your choice. If you want me to stop leaving you lemon drops, tell me, and I’ll stop. Otherwise I’m going to keep doing it until you get your head out of your ass and--”

She didn’t finish her sentence. Theon crossed the room in two long strides and pressed his lips to hers. The words died in her throat. She reached for him hungrily, her hands on his face, in his hair. They kissed over and over again in Sansa’s tiny living room. It was as though they kissed once for all the times they hated each other and twice for all the times they’d felt in love but never told one another. It was like making up for lost time, and promising the future all at once, and Sansa was certain now that she’d never loved any of the other boys she’d ever kissed. Not Joffrey, not Ramsay, not any of the cheap fucks she took home from the bar because they had blue eyes and sandy hair. She knew now what it was like to kiss someone you loved, and who loved you back. 

* * *

Once the lease was up on the trailer Theon was renting, he moved in with Sansa. It was a strange, yet familiar shift. They had lived together before, of course. Spent countless nights sleeping in the same rooms, even in the same bed. When they were children, the barrier between them had been her brothers, her parents, the knowledge that she was breaking every Stark rule by allowing him in through her window, needn’t break another by kissing Theon senseless. When Theon was detoxing, the barrier had been his insomnia, his weak stomach, the fact that Sansa was angry to her core about his digressions. 

Now, the barriers were gone. There were no more excuses. They found their way to the same bedroom each night, looking sleepless at one another in the darkness as if in disbelief at their good fortune. Or, rather, Theon’s good fortune, and the endless depths of Sansa’s forgiveness. 

They whispered to each other beneath the bedcovers the way they used to as kids. 

“Do you think we should tell Robb?”

“How much does Jon know?”

“Gods, Sansa, what will your parents think?”

Sansa tried to ease Theon’s fears with kind words and reassurances. They were usually enough to get him through the night, but not enough to carry him all the way to the redemption he sought for himself. Sansa didn’t like to talk about her time with Ramsay, the cruelties she had suffered that lead her to Theon again, but eventually she realized she must. 

“Listen to me, Theon Greyjoy,” Sansa said seriously one evening, turning to face him directly on the couch. He’d been lost in some tangent about how he ought to just change his name and dye his hair, then he could introduce himself to the Stark family as a bright young man from Cambridge, and not have to worry about how the rest of the Starks would react. 

Theon opened his eyes, and raised his head from where it had been dropped backward on the couch cushions. He looked at her seriously, recognized the edge in her voice. 

“I won’t allow you to change your name -- unless, of course, it was to take mine,” she winked at him. “I love you. I really, truly do. And I know my family will love you for the same reasons I do. You saved me, you do realize that, don’t you? You took me away from that monster, from the fate I was surely going to suffer at his hands.” 

“I didn’t. All I did was drive you home. You could have done that yourself.”

That hurt, just a bit. 

“You’re right, I could have. If I wasn’t scared senseless. I needed someone there to give me courage. You did that.”

“I was scared, too.”

“I know. But we made it out alright, didn’t we?”

Theon fixed her with those sad blue eyes of his. His face had more color in it than Sansa had seen in a long time, his cheeks fuller and his profile less angular. He looked healthy, more like the young track star she had known in school. Even still, Sansa could read his whole tragic story in his eyes, endless blue oceans. 

“I suppose. I’d sooner say that  _ I  _ made it out alright, and that  _ you  _ got the short end of the stick. I got you, and you got a coward for a boyfriend. Tell me again how this works out well for you?”

“Strange,” Sansa said, tapping her finger against her chin in mock contemplation. “Where is this coward you speak of? I don’t think I’ve met him yet.” 

“Sansa, don’t…” Theon tipped his head backward again, eyes tightly shut. “Don’t tease.”

Sansa scooted closer to him on the couch, taking his face in her hands and showering it with kisses. She spoke between pecks. He squirmed, but couldn’t suppress a smile. 

“Who knows,” a kiss, “maybe you should introduce us,” another kiss, “I might like him. Especially if he looks anything like you do.” 

She pressed their foreheads together and forced him to meet her eye. 

“If you’re a coward, then I’m a coward, too. I’ve lied to my family just as often as you have. I hid away from them and resigned my life to whatever Hell Ramsay prescribed because I was too scared to try and save myself. And here I am, hiding with you, because it’s the easiest thing I’ve ever done. But, you know what? I think that there’s still time for both of us to be brave. Do you want to be brave with me?”

Theon nodded, so soft and small that Sansa might have missed it if they weren’t pressed together. 

The following morning Sansa slept late. When she finally roused herself from bed, she was surprised to find Robb sat at her kitchen table. Theon sat across from him. They both had stoney expressions on their faces, and the coffee pot between them was mostly empty. Sansa expected they had been talking for quite some time. 

They didn’t offer her an explanation of what had been said between them. But Robb did offer her a smile, and the last of the coffee. Theon offered her a seat at the table, right on his lap. Sansa took the offerings gladly. 

* * *

Sansa and Theon were married the following summer. 

Robb was still displeased with the arrangement, but not enough that he denied being Theon’s best man. Ned and Catelyn took some smoothing over in the end, and they were never entirely pleased with the realization that their new son-in-law was the one who stole their television nearly five years prior, but they had always been forgiving people when it came to their children. Sansa knew they would love Theon as their own son. 

Their wedding was a quiet affair, mostly just Starks and a few outsiders. Yara came, even though Theon had told Sansa that she wouldn’t want to. She did want to. She didn’t say it very easily, but she managed to falter her way through a halfway decent toast that ended with, “And you may be an asshole, but I’m happy you finally found someone who loves you for it.” When she found out Theon was taking Sansa’s name, Yara gave a sly smile and said, “Theon Stark, huh? The name suits you.” 

Jon finally brought his redhead home, and they were all surprised to find that she not only existed, but was even cooler than Jon had made her out to be. Her name was Y’gritte, and she demanded a whiskey shot with Sansa alone to congratulate her on her nuptials. 

Talisa and Arya were Sansa’s only bridesmaids, and it was Gendry who caught Sansa’s bouquet, to everyone’s chagrin. He protested that Sansa had thrown it wrong, since he hadn’t even been sitting with the bachelorettes. Arya silenced him by launching into a rant about how she thought marriage was a stupid social construct anyway, but silenced herself after a moment and added hastily to Sansa, “Except yours, of course. Even if I do still think Theon’s a little bit of a prick.” 

There were drinks aplenty, and for their first dance Jon put on the  _ Lord of the Rings  _ soundtrack. He only got a few seconds in before Sansa stomped over to kick his shins, and he put on their real first song. Sansa and Theon danced to  _ Wildflowers  _ by Tom Petty, and Sansa was certain there was no greater happiness in the world than her own. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's it, folks! Drop me a line on my tumblr, [red-0ak-tree](https://red-0ak-tree.tumblr.com/) if you have any prompts, or if there are any missing scenes from this story you would like to see me expand on. Thanks for reading!!


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